


His Heartsome Heroine

by Paige_Turner36



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Belle, Anti-CS, Anti-Emma, Anti-Herocrites, Anti-Hook, Anti-Moe French, Anti-Zelena, Branding, Broken Heart Syndrome, Dagger Enslavement, Debranding, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Violence, Dream World, Episode AU: s06e01 The Saviour, F/M, Family, Fluff, Happy Beginning, Humiliation, Hypnosis, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Light Magic, Morpheus is the God of Dreams, Mr Gold Ice Cream Parlour, New Cane, Rape, Reconciliation, Rumple's haircut, Spinning wheel, Storybrooke (Once Upon a Time), Suicide Attempt, Torture, True Love, True Love's Kiss, anti-regina, anti-snow, eternity ring, mention of dubious consent, season 6 AU, sleep spell, sonogram
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:54:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22951351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paige_Turner36/pseuds/Paige_Turner36
Summary: Rumplestiltskin makes the ultimate sacrifice to free Belle and their unborn child from the sleeping curse. Betrayed and forsaken by those she’d once considered friends; Belle has never felt more alone. This is what the pursuit of heroism has got her, when what really mattered to her was gone forever. Rumple risked everything for her, now she owed him the same. With help from a very old, very clever friend, Belle journey’s into darkness to save her one true love.Rumplestiltskin needed a hero, so she guessed she’d have to do.
Relationships: Belle & Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Grandpastiltskin - Relationship, Sheep Boys - Relationship
Comments: 22
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heartsome: heartening; inspiring with heart or courage; exhilarating.
> 
> "In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you they're the good guys are the bad guys." LOST 5x16 ‘The Incident Part 1’
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT. This is for fun and not for profit.

‘Our child will be better off waiting with _me_ then being in debt to _you_.’

Rumple took a step back from her, the dazzling sun disappearing behind the stormy clouds outside, casting a shadow on their reunion. Just when he thought she couldn’t tear his guts out any more.

He had done everything she’d asked. He had destroyed the contract on their baby (a deal he had made before Belle was even born on a hypothetical baby with a woman who’d rather swim in her own vomit than allow him to touch her) without hurting anyone. He had taken Belle back to her father at her request and Maurice had forsaken his own daughter, forcing Rumple to take more drastic action. Refusing to accept the real reason his kiss didn’t work in the Underworld, Rumple had taken the town’s – _his_ town’s – magic, only to be thwarted and betrayed by his own blood who saw Belle less a member of this family then an extension of himself. When Belle and his child had been abducted he had given up his kingdom for their safe return and the knowledge in how to wake her. And he had entered her twisted dreams, helped bring Belle back to herself and was willing to let her do what she had wanted to do the very first time they kissed: break his curse.

And all Belle could say was she’d rather remain here than make a life with him. Just as she had done on the spot where they were married, so she was doing now in the place their love was born, she made his effort, his love, feel like a joke.

‘In my debt?’ said Rumple, as if seeing Belle clearly for the first time. ‘You think I only wish to wake my wife and save our child just so you could be eternally in my debt?’

Belle merely regarded him coldly. Her silence as good as confirmed it. He was just the Dark One making a deal in her eyes, not as a husband or father concerned for his family’s safety.

She had made her choice. And he had made his.

Rumple changed back to his human self and dressed in Mr Gold suit. ‘Well, I can’t have that. I had one wife punish my child because they never loved me. I won’t have you deny our child the chance to live because of your hatred and pride.’

His eyes fell on his spinning wheel and the spindle that gleamed there. He’d always liked small weapons. The needle. The pen. The fine point of a deal. How fitting… impaled upon his own sword.

‘If you want a job done right do it yourself.’

He walked over to it as if he were approaching the gallows, resigned to his fate.

‘What’re you doing?’ Belle asked.

_Like you care_ , Rumple thought sadly. _Not until it’s too late_.

‘I’m saving my family. Again.’ Rumple stood before the wheel. ‘I prick my finger on the spindle, Zelena’s sleeping curse will transfer into me. You will waken up. Our baby will be born. And you will finally be free of me. Everybody wins.’

Belle frowned. _Except for you._ ‘But you’ll be trapped under a sleeping curse. You’ll never see your child.’

‘Then we’ll pretty much have the same relationship we would’ve had after you’d woken up and left me standing alone again like an idiot for believing that you _actually_ wanted to make it work between us.’

Belle eyed the sharp point of the spindle. ‘You would curse yourself?’

Rumple glared at her. ‘The fact you are even asking me that question proves how little you know me. I took on the darkest curse ever spawned to stop my first born being taken away to war. If I have to take on another curse to save my wife, then so be it. If you ever let true love wake _you_ up, then maybe you wouldn’t keep losing. You rejected our true loves kiss. Your own father refused to even attempt to wake you unless I was gone for good. But I don’t expect you to believe that. I mean it’s not as if he tried to erase your entire being just to make you forget me – you can forgive that, but you’ll never forgive me. And I don’t see any of your hero friends helping you when they’d willing sell you out to Hyde to save their own.

‘This is the only way I can free you from this sleeping death.’

He moved his finger over the spindle.

‘You’re not serious.’

‘As serious as a kris dagger through my heart. Ah!’ For Belle had taken half a step towards in a disbelieving manner, perhaps to tell him to stop being so dramatic, and Rumple made her stop, suspending his finger threateningly an inch from the needle point. ‘I can prick my finger faster than you can move to stop me. This is the way it has to be. You’ve left me no choice, Belle.’

‘You think I wanted this?’

‘I know you need _their_ love and admiration more than mine. You wanting to be a hero, Belle, is like a child wanting to be famous. Just as me trying to be _your_ hero is like jumping through hoops for a promotion that was filled years ago. That was why you went with me in the first place; “heroism… sacrifice”, the only reason you came back to me because Regina fed you some flights of fancy about being the hero and killing the beast, and at the first sign of failure you ran away, like a coward.’

‘You kicked me out!’ Belle shouted.

‘No, you _left_!’ Rumple shot back. ‘With _zero_ objection!’

She made it sound like he’d grabbed her by the hair and thrown her out the doors, when in reality all he did was tell her quietly to ‘go’, turned his back and she walked out of his forever just to punish him, pausing only to give him a scolding and to rub salt in the wound.

‘You could have defied me, stayed in the castle, proved that Milah and Cora were wrong, and fought for our love because it was worth fighting for. But you chose to leave, to leave me – with an empty heart and a chipped cup.’

‘You had everything, Rumple! You were alive! You were free! You asked me to marry you and I did! Why wasn’t it enough for you?’

Rumple’s eyes burned with tears. It was never about power, not even the lie told her about not believing anyone could love him. It was worse than that. ‘…because I don’t have my son.’

How he managed to get the words out without choking or breaking down he didn’t know. It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. To make her understand nothing would never ever be okay without Baelfire in his life. Everything he did was for Bae, the whole reason for the creation and breaking of curse was Bae. And now he’s dead. And when he died, that bit of Rumple died with. That’ll never come back.

‘He was my happy ending. My heart, my soul, my life. And he was taken from me. He died in my arms.’

Belle’s expression did soften a little. No matter how angry she was with him, she couldn’t scold a grieving father. But no amount a grief could justify his actions any more than it could justify what Regina had done to give her the title of the Evil Queen. ‘I’m sorry about your son, Rumple, but I have lost people too –’

‘You have _no idea_ what loss is!’ Rumple snarled. He would not have Belle minimalize his loss. She may be with child but right now she was an incubator. She had no idea. He held his hands out in front of him, as his he was hold an invisible baby to his chest, cupping the back of their head. ‘Until you have held your child; kissed their hair, smelled their breath while they sleep, watched them grow, you have no idea what it means to lose a child. My son’s dead, just like Graham, just like Robin Hood, while their murders, their abusers live and go unpunished, their children left fatherless, and a long dead pirate gets a second chance of life with no price. Tell me, why is _he_ more deserving of a second chance than Baelfire? Did he not give his life to save us all? Why is my boy’s life worth less than his?

The words poured out of him like a cataract of water over a broken dam, the dam that had held it all back for so long. All that hurt, all that pain, all the things he was half ashamed of finally burst forth to crash down on Belle like a massive tsunami. She wanted the truth but she couldn’t handle the truth.

‘I’m so glad you and the rest of the town have moved on like he was never here and filled in the void with that marauding cur, but the truth is I’m struggling. I’m struggling with being brought back into a world that I left so that you and my son could live. To have my sacrifice undone by watching the light leave my son’s eyes. To be denied even to attend his funeral where the closet I got to being part of his service was being crushed under the weight of the earth as you filled in the grave. To be enslaved by a witch who locked me in a cage and made me her slave – the same woman you went to and trusted to give you a sleeping curse, even though she did it just so you could hurt me for her – who could have commanded me to kill you, who made me afraid of my curse, who made me feel I would never be safe with or without it. The things she did… And all you cared about, all you were worried about was having me back and not wanting me to kill the woman who destroyed me. If Henry or Emma had died by her hand you would have cheered on Regina and the Charming’s for executing Zelena.

‘You wanted everything to be all right again, as it was when I returned from Neverland. Like nothing had changed. How could I tell you I was broken not bent? How could I tell you that Rumplestiltskin, the man you loved, died in that cage? With my son? The only reason I went after that Hat – that I never would have found if we hadn’t broken into that damn mansion to consummate our marriage – was to free myself from the control of the dagger, to never ever feel that powerless again. That I wouldn’t lose the only light left in my life. You didn’t need to be everything for me, Belle – you _are_ everything to me! You were all I had left! And I would never have had to covet such an object if you wouldn’t let me go. The one time you couldn’t manage. How could I tell you you never should have brought me back? Then my son would still be alive.’

Belle didn’t know what was more terrifying, the depth of grief that Rumple had carried and tried to keep hidden for her sake or the answer to her next question. ‘Rumple, do you… do you blame me for Baelfire’s death?’

Rumple was silent for so long Belle thought that meant ‘yes’.

‘I shared a mind with him,’ Rumple reminded her quietly. ‘It drove me mad but it was worth it to keep my dying son alive until I could save him. I saw everything. It was you who gave him the idea to bring me back. You who told him you loved all of me, including the darkness. You who didn’t try hard enough to stop him from turning that key. No, Belle, I do not blame you. Zelena wanted to sacrifice one of you to resurrect me. And I would have felt indescribably wonderful to have a second chance with you and my son, with no price to pay. I just wish you had left things well alone. And maybe Bae would still be alive. We would be happily looking forward to this new addition to our dear family instead of standing here in this dream world… And you would still love me.’

‘Why would you say that?’

‘That’s why our kiss didn’t work in the Underworld. Right after I had destroyed the contract without any bloodshed, I kissed you. I bestowed true loves kiss. But you didn’t waken up. I didn’t to admit it, but… My father was right. I thought it was because we were both cursed. Or that we were in Hades domain where he could bend the rules as he pleased. I love you, Belle… but you don’t.’

‘No!’ Belle gasped, coming closer so that they stood on either side of the spinning wheel. ‘No! Of course I do! That can’t be the problem.’

‘Basic fact of our relationship, Belle, is I love you more than you love me. Marriage isn’t a part time job you can pick up again whenever you feel like it. Just as love is not something you can turn on and off like a tap. It’s not something you can will to be true.’

‘But it _is_ true. I love you.’

‘But not in the way I love you. Unconditionally. You’ve hurt me just as much as I’ve hurt you. But I love you.’ Rumple sighed, shaking his head. ‘This wasn’t fair on you to begin with. I took you from your home. I would’ve been the only person you would’ve known in your whole life. Who else were you supposed to fall –’

But Belle will not have Rumple tar their love story with the Stockholm syndrome brush. It wasn’t perfect but it was never that. ‘No, Rumple, listen to me here – now. No buts, no what ifs. I – love – you.’

‘You don’t love me, Belle. You just want to rescue me because I’m… because of this.’ Rumple threw the dagger down on the floor. ‘You loved the idea of me. And when reality didn’t live up to the fantasy, you couldn’t cope with the thought that all those stories you read might be wrong. If our child was the only good thing to come out of us being together, then I must have done something right. If it gives you your happy ending, then I know my life would not have been wasted.’

Belle had tears in her eyes too. ‘I _do_ love you,’ she said in a broken whisper. ‘I swear.’

‘And I love you. But it’s not enough, is it? Nothing I do will ever be enough for you.’

‘I need you.’

‘You don’t need me, Belle, you _want_ me. You want me to be your Handsome Hero Gideon. How can any man compete with that?’

Rumple conjured a blue book that looked like _Her Handsome Hero_.

‘This is for the best. You’ll finally be recognized as a hero: the Beauty who killed the Beast. You might even have a book written about you… that’s what you want, isn’t it?’

He tosses the book to her. Belle caught it and stared at her own picture on the cover, dressed in what she had worn when she faced the yaoguai, proud and impressive, emblazoned with the title _His Heartsome Heroine_.

Opening to the title page, she saw four words written in her husband’s shaky hand:

YOU WILL FORGET ME

‘Is that what you think? I’ll just forget you?’ said Belle incredulously.

‘No, Belle. It’s an instruction.’

Belle looked at the words again, an icy chill running down her spine. He wasn’t expecting her to forget him; he was _ordering_ her to.

‘One last thing…’ Rumple played nervously with his wedding ring. ‘Not that you asked for my input – or would have asked for my input – but if our child is a girl,’ he couldn’t help but smile a little at the thought of his wee bairn’s face in his mind’s eye, ‘I’d like to put in for Bayla.’

Belle smiled. ‘Bayla… as in Bae.’

‘As in beauty. Because I know she will be smart and beautiful. Bayla Rose.’

‘And if it’s a boy?’

‘Again, you don’t have to consider it –’

‘If it’s a boy?’

‘Charlie. It means freeman. Free to be who he is and wants to be, not what others expect him to be. And know that his parents will love him no matter what. Charlie Cassidy.’

Belle nodded. ‘Those are good names.’

‘And you don’t have to choose either of them.’

Morpheus appeared behind Belle at that moment, holding the hourglass. The sands had almost run through. ‘Your time’s up,’ he informed Rumple.

‘I know,’ said Rumple heavily. He flashed him a warning look. ‘You just make sure she gets home safely.’

Morpheus bowed. But when Belle looked round there was nobody there. ‘Who are you talking to?’

‘Morpheus. The God of Dreams helped me find you in this place. I only had an hour to wake you before you’d be banished back to the fiery red room... And I failed.’

Rumple turned back to the spindle.

‘No.’ Belle shook her head, tears falling down her face, her heart racing. ‘This can’t be it – you can’t, not like this, not after everything we’ve been through.’

‘We’re both out of time, Belle. We’ve been through enough heartbreak. And I’ve reached my breaking point.’

‘Don’t give up, Rumple. I– I never wanted you to be perfect. I just wanted you to try.’ 

And with those badly chosen words, Belle had pushed Rumple away for good. Shock, hurt, anger and unbearable sadness flashed quickly in his eyes before doors closed on them, leaving them empty, like it had gone beyond tragedy. And death was all he had left.

‘I have,’ he said. ‘Don’t you _dare_ say I didn’t try. _I_ tried to be _everything_ for _you_. And look what happened. I was free of the curse, a hero – the purest whose ever lived – just when I thought I was finally worth something, you still didn’t want me… And you never will. Goodbye Miss French.’

His voice was cold and guarded, like he was distancing himself from her, and Belle's eyes watered at his use of her name. He may as well have removed his wedding ring for the first time since he’d moved it from his other hand and tossed it away.

No more “Sweetheart”, “Mrs Gold”, “My love” or – her favorite – “My darling Belle”. She would never hear it again.

His hand moved before Belle could stop him.

‘No –’

Rumple pricked his finger, wincing as he drew blood. The room – this world – trembled so violently that Belle nearly lost her balance.

Rumple swayed too, feeling the curse enter his system, his face draining of colour as his stared at Belle with rapidly blurring eyes. ‘It’s done…’

‘Rumple –’

Belle had only just raised her arm to reach for him when (unseen by Belle) Morpheus put a hand on her shoulder and she was pulled backwards out of the room, though her feet remained firmly planted on the ground. As Rumple collapsed to the floor, knocking over the teacup, the sky turned dark, the candles were snuffed out, the shutters closed on the windows, plunging the great hall into darkness, before the double doors slammed shut with a booming finality.

Belle screamed Rumple’s name as a blinding light shone behind her and engulfed her.

Belle awoke with a jolt in the Temple of Morpheus and sat up so fast it made her head spin, clutching her stomach. She was awake. It worked. She looked all around her, expecting – praying – that it was all a dream. That she would see her husband standing there, smiling in relief, ready to take them home. She peered over the edge of the altar and saw a hand with a pricked index finger.

Belle all but fell off the altar beside Rumple’s body and turned in over. His eyes were closed and deathly pale. All the lines of pain, worry, regret were wiped clean from his face. He looked completely at peace.

‘No, no, no, no, no. Rumple? Rumple, wake up!’ She shook him as hard as she could, even though she knew it was useless. No victim of a sleeping curse or coma ever woke just someone shook them or slapped them in the face. ‘Wake up!’

She cupped his face, bent over him and kissed him on the lips, hoping to feel warmth beneath hers and a ripple of magic. Nothing happened. She kissed him again, harder, until she had to come up for air. Still nothing. She rummaged inside his jacket pulling out Pandora’s Box, their chipped cup, a key card to a suite at the Hotel d’Or, the Apprentice’s wand and finally the dagger.

She gripped it tightly and held it over his face.

‘Rumplestiltskin, awaken!’

But Rumple didn’t stir.

‘By the power of the dagger, I command you, Rumplestiltskin, to open your eyes!’

Rumple’s eyes opened wide at her command, but they stared straight ahead, dead-eyed, unseeing. They didn’t even flicker as they would have done if he had been dreaming. His eyes were open but he was still deep asleep. Trapped in the thralls of Zelena’s sleeping curse. Forever. Unable to stand the sight Belle, choking back tears, she closed his eyelids over his blank eyes and held him in her arms while she cried.

She never knew how long she sat there cradling her husband. Behind her, the portal opened revealing Storybrooke. Home. Her friends and family lay beyond. The same friends and family that hadn’t lifted a finger to help her. Not with destroying the contract on their baby (not for her sake anyway), not with breaking her sleeping curse, not even rescuing her when, if Rumple was telling the truth, they had given her up to the enemy. She looked down at Rumple, who had just cursed himself to save her and the baby and had just given her a way home.

Did he expect her not only to forget him, but to leave him here while she went back to start a new life with their baby? If he did, he was sadly mistake.

She would not abandon him. Not this time. Never again.

She took Pandora’s box.

‘I’m taking us home, Rumple. Sorry to do this, but you’re too heavy.’

She activated the box and Rumple was consumed by the red smoke and pulled inside. She walked through the portal. Storybrooke looked so alien to her. The streets were empty. No people rushing around wondering what on earth had happened to her. There wasn’t even a welcoming committee, except a brown pygmy owl hooting softly at her from its perch atop the pawnshop sign. You’d think they’d be worried about her?

She found everyone in Granny’s diner with a wide variety of new faces that had come over from the Land of Untold Stories. They were talking happily amongst themselves; not the least bit concerned about Belle who, last they knew, was still trapped under a sleeping curse and missing. They didn’t care. She was a piece of furniture to them, like a chair, that they wouldn’t notice until it was gone. Perhaps only realising there was no chair there when they sat down and landed on their arses. Or a coat you’d hung up in the closet and take it out again only when you really needed it.

Belle slammed the door loudly behind her, causing everyone looked round. They all stared at her as if they’d only just remembered she existed.

‘Belle!’ said Emma standing up, acting happy she was here. ‘You’re here… and you’re awake!’

The Saviour’s powers of deduction were admirable.

‘Yeah,’ said Belle quietly, clutching her hand around Pandora’s box containing her husband in her pocket. ‘No thanks to any of you.’

‘What about the Crocodile?’ asked Hook.

‘ _Rumplestiltskin_ ,’ said Belle firmly and clearly, glaring at him, ‘saved me. Which more than I can say for any of you.’

‘Where is he?’ said Emma realising that Rumple wasn’t there.

‘He entered my dreams and took my place. He’s trapped under my sleeping curse.’

Everyone looked stunned, as if this was the first time Rumple had done something so selfless and self-sacrificial. Maurice rose from his seat and threw his arms wide in celebration. ‘You’re finally free of him, Belle! No one can ever wake him! Who could ever love that beast?’

Belle stepped back out of Moe French’s reach, drawing Rumple’s dagger and pointing at him. ‘ _You_ ,’ she said with a snarl worthy of her husband. ‘You wanted this to happen. You said you wouldn’t wake me unless Rumple was gone for good.’

Just as she had demanded Rumple do whatever it took to get her back to him, Belle reminded herself. He kept his promise.

‘Belle –’

‘You hate my husband so much that you would have left your own daughter and grandchild trapped under a sleeping curse forever.’

Maurice’s eyes widened in surprise at this new development. Evidently Rumple had not told him that he was to be a grandfather. But instead of joyful pride, like any normal parent, he looked horrified. ‘You’re pregnant?’

‘Coming back at you with: you would’ve left us under a sleeping curse!’ Belle shouted.

‘Coming back at you with: that monster raped you!’ Maurice bellowed.

‘Rumple did nothing of the sort! He is my husband! And if he touches me then it’s because I invited him to touch me!’

Hook gave a self-satisfied snort of derision. How had Belle forgotten how obnoxious he was? ‘Yeah, he just _conveniently_ forgot to mention he was the Dark One again.’

Belle rounded on him. ‘Which he wouldn’t have been if someone had destroyed the darkness for good!’

‘If Gold hadn’t stolen Killian’s sacrifice, it would have been destroyed,’ said Emma.

And if I hadn’t stolen Rumple’s sacrifice, it would be Neal sitting beside Emma, not Hook, Belle thought. ‘I wasn’t talking about him, _Saviour_.’

Emma had had the Prometheus flame and Excalibur; she could have destroyed the Dark One back in Camelot. But she had given in to the darkness and multiplied it by turning Hook into a Dark One too. And look how that worked out for everyone one.

Belle glared at both of them. ‘And cleaning up your own mess is _not_ a sacrifice. Nor is it heroic to cover up your boyfriend murdering Merlin.’

‘I’ll take you to the clinic myself, my girl,’ said Maurice, changing the subject abruptly. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll have this mistake taken care of and it’ll be like it was never there.’

Mistake? An abortion? He wanted to kill her baby – his own grandchild?!

Belle placed her hand protectively over her stomach. ‘My baby is not a mistake, nor an “it”. And I’m not going to any clinic. This is all I have left of my husband and _no one_ is going to take them away from me. None of you were bothered when Hades was going to take my baby and none of you cared I was trapped under a sleeping curse and missing.’ Belle turned on Snow. ‘Why did you sell me out to Hyde? You told him I was pregnant. Why?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Snow. ‘I didn’t mean to. He thought we’d been sent by Rumplestiltskin and he didn’t believe us when we said we hadn’t. He demanded to know how we got to his world and started choking Hook –’

So it was true. And Belle hadn’t even said who it was who had betrayed her. ‘So you sold me out. You never were renowned for your secret-keeper abilities.’

‘Belle, he tried to steal magic from the town! Then he sold it over to Hyde!’

‘To – save – _ME_! Don’t you dare tell me you’d do any different!’

‘We’re heroes! We’re the good guys! You’re one of us!’

Heroes… Belle had always associated its meaning with bravery, righteousness, selflessness, a force for good. Now the word seemed to be used as something to hide behind, to cover up and absolve all manner of sins, to justify doing the wrong thing because they are on the ‘right side’. _You’re one of us_ … To be compared to the people she had once aspired to be made Belle feel physically sick. Baby snatchers, murders, rapists, pirates, Evil Queens, Wicked Witches, and ex-Dark Ones who think their actions could be forgiven because they were cursed, yet the same courtesy could not be extended to Rumplestiltskin.

‘If this is what being a hero is – throwing your friends, your family under the bus – I don’t want to be one. I’m nothing like you. I mean nothing to any of you. You’re not bothered about what happens to me, as long as it doesn’t affect you.’

‘No, Belle!’ Snow gasped. ‘It’s not that we weren’t bothered, we’ve just had more… more important things –’

‘More important things to worry about,’ Belle finished. ‘I see. You don’t see Rumplestiltskin as family, so you don’t see me as family either. Unless you want something from us: magic, research, last minute babysitter. You would’ve cared more if it was one of you trapped under a sleeping curse. You don’t care about me. Rumple was the only one who gave a damn about me. And now he’s gone.’

Charming stood up, the only one who looked the least bit guilty or sincere. ‘We’ll help you wake him, Belle.’

‘Because you care what happens to him or because you need his help cleaning up whatever mess you’ve got yourselves into? Don’t bother. I’ll find a way myself.’

‘Belle, if true loves kiss didn’t work, then that’s it,’ said Emma. ‘It’s over. Just let him go. Forget him.’

_You will forget me…_ The words flashed across Belle’s memory as if caught in the fractured light of a bolt of lightning during a storm.

_Forget him_ , says the woman who had dragged her entire family, including her twelve year old son, down to the Underworld to bring back her dead love.

It was the last hypocritical straw that broke the camel’s back and Belle’s patience.

‘How can you say that?! After everything you did to save Hook! You’d all do anything and everything to save your loved ones, but when it’s Rumple – Henry’s grandfather, the man who without him neither of us would be together – you don’t even try!’

‘That’s different –’ said Regina.

‘Why? Why’s it different?’ Belle demanded.

Anyone would think Regina had forgotten she was once the Evil Queen and would still be if the heroes hadn’t rallied around her. Had they not, Regina would’ve ended up heartless or trapped under a sleeping curse waiting for Henry to wake her, and her plans of rewriting the storybook and (if the rumours were to be believed) releasing her Evil Queen side on the town would not have been seen as good or heroic.

She addressed the group. ‘Do you know what your problem is? It’s you think your story is the only one worth fighting for! I am saving Rumple and anyone who has a problem with that can fuck right off!’

Belle turned on her heel, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.

‘And the pawnshop is out of bounds!’ she shouted back. ‘You couldn’t get in if you tried! And if there’s any trouble, don’t ring me! I’ve got enough to cope with at the moment! Maybe then you’ll finally appreciate us when we’re not at your constant beckon call!’

She slammed the door so hard behind her that the blind fell down. The heroes looked at each other shocked and confused, as if they really didn’t understand what had just happened or what they had done wrong. Behind the counter, Granny, who’d just been serving Leroy and Archie, regarded them disapprovingly over the top of her glasses, hands on hips, while Archie looked disappointed and Leroy (who’d had to free his brother Dopey from the tree without the heroes help) completely disgusted.

*

No one came near the house to demand Belle’s help to deal with Jekyll and Hyde, nor the rampaging Evil Queen Regina had unleashed. They hadn’t even been foolish enough to break through the wards around the shop. Rumple had removed all blood magic enchantments so using Henry to gain entry was futile. No one could enter, leave or remove its contents without the owner’s consent. And with the shop owner currently incapacitated, no one was getting near the pawnshop.

And Belle wasn’t about to tell them that she could still get in. Having gone down to see if there was anything there that could help, she had found a clear square patch on the dusty counter top (uncannily the right size for Pandora’s box) and a necklace with a crescent moon on it, accompanied with a note in Rumple’s hand: _Belle x_.

Belle’s eyes filled with tears again. She’d forgotten until now that the sleeping curse had side effects. She was so eager to put herself under she hadn’t considered that the next time she fell asleep she would find herself in a red room full of fire. But with this necklace she would be able to control the flames and save herself and the baby from burns until the dreams faded.

Rumple was still protecting her even now.

Belle held the piece of paper containing Rumple’s last ‘Belle’, his last kiss, close to her chest.

The only people who did come to the house came to check on Belle, asked how Rumple was, and brought round food and gifts for the baby instead of demanding her help for research or babysitting. Otherwise known as Belle’s _real_ friends. Granny came with a takeaway bag and a knitted blanket like the one she’d made for Emma, except she’d sewed threads of Rumple-spun gold into the wool and left the space for the baby’s name blank until they’d decided. Leroy and Marco brought a new crib they’d built, complete with a dwarf-crafted crystal stars mobile that twinkled like real stars. Ariel brought a gold sand dollar that was a music box. Belle played it next to her slowly extending stomach, and it certainly helped to fill the unnatural silence. And Archie always provided a friendly ear when Belle needed to talk, Pongo an ear to scratch, and to reassure her that if anyone could bring Rumplestiltskin back it was her.

Rumple lay on their bed, still fully clothed expect for his suit jacket, tie and shoes. Belle lay beside him, stroking his hair. This was exactly like last time when he was in a coma. But this time she would not leave his side. She had made a vow to save him and she will, no matter how long it took. She would be the one to wake him; she would be the first thing he saw when he woke up.

Not the Wicked Witch. Not the Dark Swan. Her.

Open books on magic and pregnancy were strewn everywhere. Though the only subject she had made any progress in few weeks was _What to Expect When You’re Expecting_.

She talked to Rumple constantly; about the baby, read passages from her pregnancy books (‘Did you know your heart gets bigger both in length and width? Love for your baby actually makes your heart grow,’ said Belle), even their story from Henry’s book, hoping that her voice could reach him as it did before. _All I wanted to do was to let go… and then I heard something. Your voice… Belle, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be alive_. And every night before she lay down to sleep she would kiss him, praying that this time it would work and Rumple would wake. She would kiss him until her lips bled and keep kissing until that day came.

‘I love you,’ Belle whispered, stroking his face. She had wrapped his arm around her to give the illusion he was hugging her. Her head was resting on his chest, rising and falling with his breathing, listening to his heartbeat, as if he was really only asleep. ‘I know you don’t believe me. That you think I’m only saying it because you’re like this. But I’m not. I love you, my husband. And when you wake, I’m going to tell you properly, just to see that sexy smile. My life was so boring before you came walking through my doors. So…’ her voice trembled, ‘wake up. Let me see that smile. Let me see those beautiful eyes. Rumple, please. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to bring you home – back to me. To us.’

Belle reached up to kiss him, pouring all her heart into it (still no change), and lay back down, hugging him close, her tears soaking his shirt. The only witness to her misery was a brown pygmy owl staring in at them through the bedroom window.

Whoever said morning sickness only happened in the mornings? They lied. Belle’s happened at night so she got little or no sleep. Tonight was particularly bad. She woke up in the dark to feel her mouth begin to fill with cool, thin bile. She jumped up and rushed to the toilet, without stopping to turn on the light, only just in time to vomit up what felt like everything I'd eaten in the last week, and stuff she couldn’t even remember eating. Belle spat into the bowl, gasping for breath, stroking the small bump that had started to appear. She knew it would all be worth it when the baby came along, but she didn’t have to like it.

There was a loud creak on the landing. There were only two people in this house and one of them was unconscious. Belle slipped out of the bathroom, pulled open a drawer from the table and took out a gun. She slid along the wall, holding the gun tightly in her hands. She had never fired a weapon before, but whoever had just broken into her home picked the wrong night to test her trigger finger.

Belle kicked their bedroom open and aimed the gun at the intruder.

‘Get away from him!’

A hooded figure was leaning over Rumple, one hand pressed to his forehead, the other resting over his heart. What were they doing to him?

‘Don’t you touch my husband!’

The figure raised their head, revealing a smile. Then it reached up and lowered its hood, revealing…

‘Merlin…’ Belle gasped, lowering the gun.

‘Hello Belle,’ said Merlin.

Was she sleep-deprived or had she finally cracked? ‘But… You’re dead.’

‘Well, yes. I guess you’d have to say so. I’m more into the spirit-guide-occasional-appearance sort of thing now. But I still have influence over things. And I exist in other forms too.’

Merlin turned into the brown pygmy owl with yellow eyes she had seen since she arrived back and hooted at her.

‘Why are you here?’ Belle asked when he’d changed back again.

‘I always spare time for old friends.’ He looked down at Rumple’s sleeping form and smiled. ‘Rumplestiltskin… always so full of love. The heart of the purest hero.’

‘You knew it would be Rumple who would turn the Darkness into Light?’

‘It was always Rumple. I had hopes for Emma Swan, but with the removal of the Saviour’s natural darkness, it made her more susceptible, never been exposed to dark impulses. Your love kept the light alive in Rumple’s heart. He gave his life for you so that you and your child could live.’

‘He’s not dead!’ said Belle hotly.

‘No,’ said Merlin seriously. ‘He’s trapped in a living death. Even further out than you were. He must have truly loved you to endure such torment.’

‘Then why won’t he wake up? I’ve even tried kissing him.’

‘I believe he still fears you will not want him. He’s trapped in limbo; unable to die, unable to wake. He needs you. But you have your own doubts, don’t you, Belle? And Rumple knows this. Neither one of you want to be hurt again. Loving someone is the bravest thing anyone of us can do. But if Rumple is to wake, if you want your husband back, and your child’s papa, you will both need to let go of your fear.’

‘I’ve been talking to him. I don’t know if he can hear me.’

‘Then you will need to go deeper. He is lost in the dark and you, his light in the darkness, must guide him home. It will not be easy. He has suffered much and he had just taken in the Wicked Witch’s sleeping curse to save you. And as the name suggests, his regrets and fears, all three hundred years of them, will be twisted far worse than what the Dark One could do. You may not like what you see and hear. And the Darkness and wickedness combined… let us hope he hasn’t passed beyond our aid.’

‘What if I fail?’ said Belle fearfully. What if she had already failed?

Merlin smiled. ‘When you find something that’s worth fighting for, you never give up. Ask yourself this: Is Rumplestiltskin worth fighting for?’

It wasn’t a question. Belle wanted her husband back. She just wanted him. She loved him. ‘Always.’

Merlin walked over to Belle and placed his hands on her shoulders looking as if he couldn’t have been prouder of anyone. ‘That’s more like Belle Gold. Good luck.’

Good luck? Belle admired his faith in her, but how was she supposed to…

Before Belle knew what was happening, it happened. And she could do nothing to prevent it.

Merlin’s irises glowed gold as if lit by a thousand tiny stars, that sparkled and begun to swirl around his pupils. Belle’s eyes became irresistibly locked with his. Her vision started to blur at the edges, except for those stars that held her mesmerized. Her eyelids became so heavy that she was struggling to keep them open just to keep gazing into them. And with every blink they became heavier. If it weren’t for Merlin holding her up, Belle would have fallen, her body relaxing, feeling as if she were amerced in warm water.

Merlin didn’t say any of the usual things Belle had read about to lull her under hypnosis, not even waving his hands in front of her face as he had once disenchanted Snow White and Prince Charming. He seemed content to just let his entrancing eyes weave their hypnotic spell, coaxing her to sleep whilst at the same time compelling her to keep staring. Though every now and then they did shine brighter and swirl faster, sending a pleasant wave of drowsiness washing over her. She could almost imagine those stars reflected in her own eyes, as if they were pouring down some imaginary connection straight into her drowsy, open mind, feeling them swirl round and round… and round…

Belle didn’t know how long she floated in that timeless, dreamy state. Or perhaps no time had passed at all. The world had slowed down expect for those starry swirls. She could happily stare into them forever, watching them spin like Rumple’s spinning wheel… Rumple… the only clear thought in her hazy mind. The more her thoughts focused on Rumple, the stars sparkled brighter and swirled faster, pulling her deeper and deeper into its warm embrace, like one of Rumple’s hugs… the sound of his soft brogue as he spoke her name like a prayer… the touch of his hands worshipping her like a goddess, sending a quiver right through her until she could almost feel him inside of her… the smell of the forest and spice, of cologne, mixed with the tang of magic, but not as strong as Rumple’s natural scent… his eyes, both brown and amber, gazing into her eyes with love, tenderness, awe and rapture, as if she was his everything… and the feel of his soft lips on his, bestowing the true loves kiss that would have saved them both…

With one final pulse of stars from the depths of his pupils, filling her vision, Belle closed her tired, heavy eyes and succumbed to deep sleep. Deeper than the wicked curse she had so blindly put herself under.

An eternity for Belle was mere seconds in reality. Even in death Merlin, the most powerful sorcerer of all, could weave multiple spells at once. Even slow down time. Catching Rumple’s beauty completely off guard, giving her no time to even think about resisting, Merlin drew Belle into a deep hypnotic trance, reflected by the mass of white stars swirling in her blue irises. If he were a lesser wizard he could do anything he wanted with her right now, make her do anything he wanted.

This magical underhand was regrettable but necessary. No sleeping curse would work on someone who had already been placed under one. And poppy dust and sleeping potions would only take Belle as far as the fiery red room. But Rumple wouldn’t be there, having cursed himself deeper into sleep. Belle would have to penetrate the depths of his very soul. So Merlin willed the entranced Belle to think of Rumple and she needed no further encouragement to completely amerce herself in her true love; in every sense, drowning in him as much as Merlin’s hypnotic eyes. He could almost feel her arousal growing under so many stimuli. Before he accidentally gave her an orgasm, and satisfied she was completely and deeply enthralled, Merlin commanded her to sleep.

In real time, Merlin’s brown eyes flashed gold; Belle’s blue eyes fluttered and closed as she passed out, falling into Merlin’s arms, fast asleep. He picked her up, carried her to the bed and laid the sleeping beauty next to her sleeping twice cursed husband. He withdrew a handful of golden sands from within the folds of his robes and sprinkled them over Rumple’s forehead and then over Belle’s before pouring the rest over both of them.

It was up to Belle now. She must save her Rumple or be trapped forever herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Sometimes it's the imperfect stuff that makes things perfect.' – The Big Bang Theory S11E24

Belle was nowhere. All around her was darkness. There was nothing here. No Rumple. No Merlin. No stars. Just the dark, and the cold, and the silence.

It was just her. One light alone in the darkness.

She unconsciously touched her stomach to check the baby was okay. But her bump wasn’t there. Belle looked down, panicked, lifting her top, and ran her hand over her stomach that was as flat as a pancake. She hardly registered that she was dressed in her maroon suede tunic bodice, gold V-neck under shirt, vintage belt and brown trousers when she’d defeated the yaoguai. Even her hair was tied up the same.

No, this was just a dream. Their baby was fine. The sooner she found Rumple, the sooner they’d wake up back in their bodies; pregnant and all the hormones, cravings and bitter aftertaste of morning sickness that comes with it.

Trying to stay calm, she wondered what to do.

_‘What the hell is this?!’_

The vicious woman’s voice made Belle jump out of her skin. Turning she saw a dark haired woman with her back to her, confronting a haggard, world-weary peasant-Rumple, clutching his walking staff for support, quelling under his wife’s fury as she held a small purse and the meagre money he had earned at the market that day between them.

_‘P-Please, Milah,’_ Rumple stammered, which seemed to infuriated his wife more. _‘You must understand. It… it was a slow day at the market –’_

Milah slapped him in the jaw with the money bag as punishment for that unacceptable answer. _‘Or no one wishes to buy from the town coward because they’re afraid they might catch it!’_ She sighed, shaking her head. _‘Why must you_ always _be such a disappointment to me?’_

Rumple ducked his head in shame, more of his confidence and self-worth being chipped away, a bruise forming on his cheek. _‘I’m sorry,’_ he mumbled.

_‘Not as sorry as I am for marrying someone as weak and pathetic as you. I should be an honoured widow of a war hero; instead I’m latched to the village coward.’_

Rumple looked at her pleadingly; his puppy dog eyes big and full of tears. _‘I lived for you. For Bae. I love you.’_

_‘So I am a prisoner in this marriage because you love me? Well, thank you very much for deciding the rest of my narrow little life.’_

_‘I can change. I can be anyone you want me to be.’_

_‘You’re_ never _going to change.’_

_‘Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do. I’ll do anything for you.’_

_‘_ Anything _?’_

Rumple nodded eagerly, looking ready to spring into action as soon as his wife said the word. It was almost painful to watch.

_‘Okay. I’ll tell you what you can do.’_ She walked right up to him and turned her face. But it was not Milah who glared at Rumple with disgust and contempt… it was _Belle_! And it was Belle who said, _‘You can DIE. Then I won’t have to be reminded of the biggest mistake of my life.’_

Milah-Belle moved passed Rumple, looking as though his wife had stabbed him in the heart. She looked back and said carelessly, _‘Just play with the boy. That’s about the only thing you can do.’_

She left for the tavern without a backwards glance to join her drinking buddies; the Sheriff of Nottingham, Captain Hook and Will Scarlet, whose company she preferred over her husband and son. She accepted a tankard of rum from Hook who was dressed in Gaston’s red war uniform and shared a toast, drinking deeply, whilst eying up Will Scarlet with a flirtatious, hungry look in her eyes over the rim of her tankard. They faded into the darkness, leaving spinner-Rumple wretched and the real Belle sickened.

_‘Papa?’_

The small voice lifted spinner-Rumple’s battered spirit and even through his pain, seeing his beautiful boy brought a true smile to his tortured face as he picked him and hugged him. Bae kissed his papa’s sore unshaven cheek, as if his kiss could magically heal it and take away his pain, then wrapped his small arms around his papa’s neck and stroked his shaggy hair.

_‘Don’t be sad, Papa.’_

_‘Oh Bae. How can I be sad when I have you and your healing hugs?’_ whispered Rumple softly.

Bae drew back and smiled at Rumple with love and adoration in his eyes, as on a boy has for his father. _‘You’ll always have me, Papa. I love you.’_

_‘I love you too, son. We’ll always be together. Always.’_

Then the scene changed. And the smile turned to grief, and his little boy Baelfire grew into Neal Cassidy dead in his arms, as he rocked backwards and forwards in his dishevelled suit, crying over the loss of his child. His sobs echoing in this desolate void. Then Neal faded into smoke causing Rumple fall forwards onto his knees before the bright orange town line that separated him from Belle.

She had been too much of a coward to look back at her pleading husband let alone watch as she’d forced him to step over the line, banishing him from her life, away from her, away from his son’s grave, into a cold hard world with no money, no hope, not even a cane to help him down the lonely road.

But she could see it now, Rumple in a crumpled heap on the floor, on his knees in a nine hundred dollar suit, like a child left abandoned on the side of the road, crying unashamedly as he reached desperately into nothing for Belle in the vain hope that she would take his hand and pull him back.

_‘Belle? Belle, please! Please, Belle…’_

Belle dropped to her own knees on her side of the line and grabbed his hand. But her fingers passed straight through it as if she was a ghost. Then she watched in horror as his fingernails turned lilac and his fingertips were turning blue to match his trembling lips, his breath rose in a mist before his pale face.

How long had Rumple waited for her at the town line before finally accepting she wasn’t there and was never coming back? How long before his voice broke from shouting her name? How long before he had no more tears to shed? How long before cold and hunger forced him to struggle to his feet and hobble up the long walk?

Then Rumple gasped and clutched his chest, grimacing in pain and fear. _‘Belle…’_ His voice was weaker this time, barely above a whisper, but no less pained, using all his waning strength to beg for her help. _‘Come back… come back… please… Belle… I… lo…’_

And then he dropped like a sack of potatoes. He lay on his back, staring unseeing at the starless sky, his last tear falling silently down his blank face, his last misty breath dissipating in the air. Was that a heart attack he’d suffered? Or worse, takotsubo cardiomyopathy that literally meant he’d died of a broken heart?

Black tendrils rose up out of Rumple’s shell and solidified into the Dark One, crouched in Rumple’s impish stance beside his body. Or should that be the Dark Beauty? _Black_ Beauty? For Belle was staring at the Dark One version of herself. She had expected scaly skin and reptilian eyes, but perhaps that was because she was in a Land Without Magic. Just like the Dark Swan, her face was pale that made her deep sapphire blue eyes and crimson lips stand out. Hair was black as night as was her armour, as if the darkness had melded to her flesh like a body suit.

She straightened up and stared down at Rumplestiltskin. There was no pity in her gaze, no remorse at abandoning her last host. _‘Well, there you go,’_ said Dark One-Belle. _‘This is where love gets you. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen. I told you she’d try to stop you from being you. I told you you should’ve killed her, destroyed the threat to your happy ending. That you’d go back to being powerless. That you’d lose your son forever. Did I not say she wanted to destroy you, to destroy us? She doesn’t understand us. She doesn’t understand the power. It was to protect yourself and your loved ones! But she chose heroism over you. She_ had _to become a hero, no matter what the cost. Now you’re right back where you started:_ Nothing _.’_

She turned her back on the lifeless meat on the floor. She took the dagger where the name ‘Belle’ blazed, neither Gold nor French, raised it high and placed it over her shoulder where the darkness enveloped the blade, encasing it into a sheath that was fused to her back, so that no one could touch this knife except its rightful owner. Then with the click of heels she sauntered away and was swallowed by the darkness.

Then dead-Rumple faded into smoke, like his son.

_‘You came.’_

Belle turned. Rumple, alive and now the Dark One, greeted a young Cora with open arms on the night they were meant to have run off together. But as she came nearer, Belle saw herself wearing the miller’s daughter’s royal fur cloak and carrying the small casket containing her ripped out heart. What was worse was the presence of their wishing well that certainly not been there at that fatal meeting. But Belle couldn’t fail to miss the parallel.

_‘So it would seem,’_ said Cora-Belle.

_‘Oh dearest. I’m ready to start our new life together.’_

_‘As am I. Just not with you.’_

Rumple’s happy smile faded. _‘I don’t understand.’_

Cora-Belle smile was pitied and empty without her heart as she stroked her lover’s face. _‘I’m sorry, my dear Rumple. But I’m not going with you.’_

_‘But you came. I did everything you asked of me.’_

_‘I’m sorry. But I have to think about what’s best for me. You’re just holding me back.’_

_‘I gave you my heart.’_

Cora-Belle held up Rumple’s heart in her hand. _‘And I shall treasure it always.’_

_‘What am I supposed to do?’_

_‘You should’ve protected your heart better. Love is weakness. I thought you knew that.’_

Belle saw Rumple’s broken heart break through the Dark One’s mask and she saw the spinner beneath the beast shining through. So much so the scales actually cracked and fell away, revealing the heartbroken dying man trying desperately to hold on to his ability to love.

_‘You’re pathetic.’_ Belle watched herself changed from the Queen of Hearts to her daughter the Evil Queen, black dress, formidable hair-style and gripping Rumple’s black heart with the small red spot of his humanity in her hand. _‘Watching you coming come groveling back to me is like a dog begging for scraps.’_

Belle’s stomach turned at the forgotten words Regina had forced her to speak.

Then she watched herself turn into scantily clad, bar flyer Lacey.

_‘You really are as dark as people say. You have power, literal magic at your fingertips; you can keep me young forever. Women don’t want nice guys. That’s not me. I’m not competing with a ghost. If you’re not the town monster who won’t let anyone stand in his way, you’re not even worth my time.’_

Then she split into the Black Fairy, the Blue Fairy and herself wearing the brown coat she’d worn when she’d arrived in the Underworld. All three were carrying a baby in their arms.

_‘Sometimes you have to choose power over love,’_ said Black Fairy-Belle with the child she’d rather steal than keep the child that was actually her own.

_‘You’re rotten to the core. I must take your son somewhere he can escape this wretched curse,’_ said Blue Fairy-Belle carrying baby Bae wrapped in his shawl.

_‘Our child will be better off with_ me _than being in debt to_ you _,’_ said Underworld-Belle carrying their unborn child. _‘You should have ended up in the River of Lost Souls, not my fiancé.’_

The three women left, taking their babies with them.

And just when things couldn’t get any worse, Belle stood on the edge of the storm cellar cage, watching her powerless husband being tortured by her own wicked-self. She had cut his hair, no doubt with his own dagger, chunks of his precious floof scattered around his head, looking like Aslan the lion who’d just had his mane cut by the White Witch as a form of humiliation before she dealt the final blow.

_‘No more,’_ Rumple whimpered. _‘No more, please.’_

_‘Not until you learn how to behave,’_ said Zelena-Belle, her blood red lips and white teeth contrasting starkly against her green skin.

She flicked the dagger and Rumple screamed in pain as he thrashed and writhed on the floor at her feet. Zelena-Belle flicked the dagger again and the screaming stopped. Rumple groaned, shivering violently.

_‘I give you my heart and yet you’re still ungrateful. If you would just stop fighting me, it’ll be much more pleasurable. It’s not as if anyone else will love you.’_

Rumple glared up at her. _‘Kill me. Kill me like you did Bae, and I’ll finally be reunited with him.’_

Zelena-Belle laughed that skin-crawling cackle. _‘I hope that’s hell because that’s where you’re going. But I’m not letting you off that easily. Why should Hades have all the fun? Look at me!’_

Rumple had no choice but to obey and look at her.

_‘Ironic, isn’t it? Rumplestiltskin who steals firstborns. And I took_ your _firstborn. I’m all you have left in the world. So be a good boy and make me feel alive.’_

Belle couldn’t look away or shut her eyes, because every time she did, every time she tried, all she could see was her love being raped by the Wicked Witch wearing her face. And with every thrust she made Rumple repeat her words like a mantra.

_‘Ugly! Useless! Worthless! Weak! Pathetic! Unloved! Unloving! Villain! Beast! Monster! Pet! Slave! Cowaaaaaaard!’_

Zelena-Belle panted in ecstasy and smiled down at her prey. _‘And_ repeat. _’_

Rumple, his shirt ripped open, his bare chest covered in bleeding fingernail scratches and (Belle gasped, retching a little) a circular brand with the letter Z burned into his flesh over his heart, blackened and raw as the day the red hot rod had been applied forcibly to his chest, sobbed in fear at the prospect of another round.

_‘Now, Rumple. The best way to learn is by repetition. Make sure it sticks.’_

Once again Zelena-Belle raped him. Once again Rumple, without even being ordered to do so, repeated the mantra with every pain rock until his tormentor was satisfied.

Zelena-Belle slid off him and dressed. Rumple lay on the floor in a horrified trance, staring into nothingness, silent tears falling down his face, the skin of his groin inflamed and surrounded in deep scratches.

_‘She will leave you too, you know. Being abandoned is what you’re good at. She’ll toss you away like a piece of rubbish. She will cheat you, hurt you, lie. She’ll take what’s yours and leave you with nothing. And when she’s in the arms of another, younger, better man, she won’t even_ think _about you. She won’t care if you die in the gutter. And you know why.’_

Rumple drew a shuddering breath, and said in a deadpan voice, _‘…because I’m a man no one can love.’_ He touched the brand on his chest, flinching a little as green magic shot through his veins around it. _‘Because I’m yours.’_

Zelena-Belle smiled at her branded, shorn, humiliated and broken ex-teacher. _‘And the sooner you accept it the better.’_ She traced the mark with her finger. _‘You can heal it, but you will always know it’s there underneath it. You belong to me now. You’re mine, forever. Because you know that your precious little Belle will never want you now. How can she ever forgive you? Sleep well, doll.’_

She laughed, the sound piercing him and swept from the cage.

Rumple burst into tears. He curled into a ball and covered his face in his hands. _‘I’m sorry, Belle. I’m so sorry.’_

Belle couldn’t stand the sight any longer. She unlocked the cage door and fell to her knees beside Rumple’s trembling form and reach forward to comfort him, to gather him up in her arms. ‘Rumple –’

But before she could touch him, he vanished like smoke.

‘He can’t hear you.’ Merlin had appeared. ‘These are ghosts. Your Rumple, I fear, is still lost deep within himself.’

Belle was too shaken and sickened by everything she’d seen to tear into the wizard about hypnotizing her into this place.

‘Is that really how he sees me?’ Belle asked shakily thinking of the many versions of herself she had demean, ridicule, exploit, betray and torture the man she loved.

‘I fear it’s worse than that,’ said Merlin gravely.

‘How can it be _worse_? He thinks I’m _exactly_ like them.’

To be likened to every person who’d ever hurt or abused him; his cruel ex-wife, the heartless queen, the Evil Queen, the Wicked Witch, the parasitic curse, her cursed counterpart who lusted after his darkness and power, the fairy mother who had abandoned him and the high fairy who had separated father and son, instead of the woman he loves. What could be worse than that?

‘Rumplestiltskin would not do you the dishonour,’ said Merlin. ‘It is not a comparison. It is confirmation. None of these women loved Rumple as he loved them or saw him as a being capable of love. Rumplestiltskin is a good man. All his life he’s been told that he’s not. He’s heard it so many times he started to believe it. Then you came along and told him you loved the things about him he’s been taught to hate. So to hear you repeat the same soul crushing words by those who were supposed to love him only confirms it. If Belle believes it then it must be true: Rumplestiltskin is unloved and unlovable. Not a difficult man to love… but a man _no one_ can love.’

So Belle was proof that all his flaws, insecurities were justified.

She’d said awful things to him. She’d used the dagger against him. She’d stopped fighting for him and moved on with another man. He became the man she always wanted him to be, that she knew was inside him, and she threw it back in his face. She’d blamed him for a deal he was forced to make to save his dying son. She rejected his love in the place where their true love was born.

_Basic fact of our relationship, Belle: I love you more than you love me._

‘No wonder he doesn’t want to wake up?,’ she said aloud. ‘Why would he? Why would he want to come back to me?’

‘Because he loves you.’

How was that even possible? ‘Why? Why does he love me?’

‘That you will need to ask him. You care for him, don’t you? You want him back?’

Belle nodded. She wasn’t going to let a bunch of nightmares scare her. Rumple didn’t give up when Belle saw him as the Beast in her dreams and neither would she. ‘More than anything.’

‘Well, then. You must tell him.’

Merlin gestured behind him where now stood a lone stone tower. At its base was a broken skeleton wearing a horribly familiar bloodied blue maid’s dress. A dead once red rose lay on its chest.

‘ _He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges and flaying. After a while she threw herself off the tower. She died_.’

Oh no… The tower was so high Belle had to crane her neck and step a couple of steps back to see the dot of a despondent man standing on the edge. Ready to jump.

‘Get me up there. Now.’

Merlin waved his hand and with a cloud of blue smoke and stars magicked Belle to the top to the tower. Her eyes followed the dotted trail of blood until she saw the tortured soul that had shed it.

Suit dishevelled, hair shorn, his right foot bloodied and broken Rumple stood on the parapet, blood pooling onto the stones, looking down at his final destination. Belle didn’t know if you could die in this dream world or just fall into a deep coma, but she wasn’t going to risk finding out as Rumple lifted his broken foot to take the last definitive step.

‘Rumple.’

Rumple froze.

‘Rumplestiltskin.’

Slowly, Rumple put his foot tenderly back down and twisted round. His eyes were red from Ashley Boyd’s pepper spray assault, his body drooped and tired. His shirt was torn open, exposing Zelena’s brand, every cut, every scratch and every bruise he’d suffered in his long life. Including those he’d inflicted on himself. He was holding their chipped cup in his bloody, frostbitten hands. Except it was no longer chipped. The missing triangular piece that had given it such charm and meaning had been glued back into the rim. Its porcelain surface was covered in gold lines, like it had been broken and put back together again with melted gold, giving it a beautiful Kintsugi look. Then Belle remembered it had been broken. Twice. Once by her out of fear. And the other by Rumple out of sacrifice.

Rumple stared straight through her. Why wouldn’t he? He’d already been through enough Belles in this place. Why should this one be any different?

‘So…’ Rumple said tiredly as if he’d been through this so many times for it to be surprising or painful. ‘Which part of my subconscious do you hail from?’

‘It’s me,’ said Belle. ‘Belle.’

‘Belle.’ No warmth. No pain. No anger. It was a statement. A word, without context.

‘I’m here to help you.’

Rumple looked at the cup as if he’d only just remembered he was still holding it. He held it out to her. ‘Is this yours?’

Belle smiled. ‘It’s _ours_. Do you know what it is?’

Rumple turned it over in his hands.

‘It’s your talisman.’

He looked at her like she was as mad as her amnesiac-self thought he had been. ‘It’s a cup. It’s damaged. Why hold on to something that’s broken? Why not just throw it away?’

_Sometimes I worry… I worry I threw out the chipped teacup too soon._

‘Because that would be a waste,’ Belle told him. ‘I did that once, but I was wrong. I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to improve it, make it better. But it’s already perfect as it is. Not everyone understands that. But we do.’

‘Why did I keep it?’

‘Because it has sentimental value to you.’

Rumple looked at cup again, more closely. He saw it then. His brows became unknitted, his expression serene as he stared intently at their cup, entranced. An image of the woman – this woman – standing in a castle and wearing a beautiful golden ball gown, holding up this chipped teacup flashed in his mind and was gone.

‘You dropped it… in my castle,’ he whispered, the words coming to him without conscious thought, running his thumb along the resealed chip. ‘You were afraid that you had angered me…’

Belle’s heart leapt. He remembered!

Then his eyes became sad again. ‘All you’ll have… is an empty heart… and a chipped cup.’ He covered the broken cup with his hand, breaking the spell. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’m a coward.’

‘No,’ said Belle firmly. ‘You’re not.’

‘What am I fighting for?’ he asked of her.

‘For your Happy Ending. For me.’ Belle beamed at him with the love in the world. ‘Because you’re my brave, handsome hero.’

Rumple shook his head. ‘No...’

Belle’s smile faded. ‘What?’

‘I’m not a hero. I don’t want to be a hero. I’m tired of killing myself trying to be everything for everyone else, instead of being me. I want the pain to stop. I just want peace.’ He looked over the precipice. ‘I want it to end.’

‘If you fall, you’re going to be lost. Everyone who loves you will lose you. But worse than that, you’ll lose yourself.’

‘I was lost a long time ago. This is all I have left.’

She was losing him. She needed to pull him back now. ‘You are _not_ the kind of man to leave a child fatherless!’

Family was the most important thing to Rumple. If their child couldn’t reach him nothing will.

Rumple tore his gaze away from the fathomless depths to look at her. She saw a flicker of light in his eyes. It was only a flicker but it was there. ‘I’m to be a father?’

Belle nodded. ‘Yes.’ She placed a hand on her stomach. ‘Someone wanted to take them away from us, but you stopped them. Then you sacrificed your soul so that they would have a chance to live. Even if it meant you would never see them. _That’s_ why you’re here. You were saving us. Because you love us. And now I’m here to save you. I’m going to take you home.’

‘Home?’ he breathed, as if the very notion of the place was ridiculous and far-fetched.

‘I love you.’

He blinked down at her, shaking his head a little. ‘You can’t.’

‘But I do,’ Belle breathed. She moved a few paces nearer.

He shook his head a little, eyes disbelieving, lips quivering. ‘You can’t. No one can ever love me.’

‘I can.’ Another step. ‘I do.’ And another. ‘And I married you.’

Belle held out her hand to him. Rumple looked back at her, still unsure. Then his eyes darkened when he saw her ringless hand.

‘No ring because you don’t like wearing one? Because you’re a liar? Or because you no longer wish to be married to me?’

Belle swallowed. ‘I thought your love was a lie. I thought I was second best to something more desirable than myself. But I was wrong. It’s my fault we’re here.’

‘If it was me, that I was unfaithful –’

‘No! It wasn’t like that. You had suffered a trauma. You were hurting and I didn’t take it seriously. And you were trying to protect me from it. I will not have you take on the blame onto yourself. No relationship is one-sided. You shouldn’t have hid your pain from me. And I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I’m sorry I doubted you. I know who you are. I know you.’

‘You do not.’

Belle nodded, tears spilling from her eyes as she smiled. ‘Yes I do,’ she said wetly. ‘You’re my husband. You’re my heart…. my compass... my anchor… my best friend… my true love... And I am not leaving here without you. I’ll spend an eternity here if that’s how long it takes.’

Belle reached for him, her hand carefully outstretched to him, desperation in her blue eyes.

‘Rumple, I’m here, I am. Please. Please, get off the ledge. Don’t do this, Rumple, please. Our child needs you. _I_ need you. Please come down, please.’

Rumple blinked, trembling and staring at her hand. ‘You’re real?’ he choked. She nodded, taking another step toward him.

‘Yes, Rumple, yes, I swear. Come here and I’ll show you,’ she urged gently. She didn’t want to rush him or grab him, in case he slipped, in case he panicked and lurched away. She needed him to make the decision.

He looked afraid and broken. She just wanted to hold him and soothe him, tell him everything was going to be okay.

‘Rumple, I promise, you can get down, and no pain will come to you. No more pain. This nightmare will end. And I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again. I won’t let that happen,’ Belle begged. She held out her hand palm up for him to grab not for her to grab him. ‘Believe in our love and we can go back. Take, Rumple. Please.’

Rumple stared, and hoped with whatever he had left that this was true. He slowly touched her hand, fingers delicately touching her palms. Rumple’s pupils dilated as the memories came rushing back, accompanied by the realisation that his love had come back for him, making his fingers shake before grabbing her hand. He sobbed once, finding she was solid.

‘ _Belle_.’

‘Yes. It’s me.’ Belle is crying too, squeezing his hand back with equal relief that he was solid and not a ghost. _Thank you for coming back to me._ ‘Come on.’

Rumple smiled tremulously, nodding. He took a step down from the parapet –

The stone floor cracked beneath their feet and broke away. She screamed and he yelled as they began to fall. Belle just had time to grab what was left of the tower of isolation, keeping a firm grip on Rumple’s hand, before the chunks of stone and rubble disappeared leaving them hanging there. Rumple looked over his shoulder as the bottomless pit below. Belle knew what Rumple was going to say before he said it. She could already feel his hand slowly slipping and she herself was struggling to keep hold of the rough stone.

‘Belle!’ Rumple panted, looking desperately at Belle. ‘Belle, let me go!’

‘No!’ Belle shook her head.

‘Belle, let go!’

‘NO!’ Belle screamed. She sobbed. ‘Rumple, if you let go I’m coming with you!’ Her breath hitched and she choked, ‘I love you, Rumple!’

Rumple looked stunned at her words. If this is how it was going to end, if they were going to fall, Belle would be damned if they weren’t going to fall together. Then his expression softened and she felt him grip her fingers. It wasn’t just serenity, it was acceptance.

He nodded. And Belle, smiling, nodded too.

She let go of the tower.

Icey air rushed passed them as they fell, gripping each other for dear life. Belle shut her eyes tight, arms wrapped around Rumple’s neck and focused on the feel of Rumple’s face buried in the crook of her neck and the broken teacup he was still hold digging into her back.

A bright light shone through her eyelids. When it had cleared Belle realised she was kneeling on solid ground, still holding her husband and felt her fingers curled in his curtains of soft hair, the familiar sound of their wedding song playing on a gramophone.

When she opened her eyes she saw they were back in the sunlight great hall of the Dark Castle. If the tower was a test, it seemed they’d passed. Belle pulled back to look at Rumple. He looked like the Dark One again, scales, large reptilian eyes, curly hair, but at least he didn’t look like a human punch bag or a knife sharpener. The only affliction that remained was Zelena’s ugly brand on his golden skin just visible through the V neckline of his black leathers.

Rumple stared back at her with watery adoration. ‘You came back.’

‘Of course I came back,’ said Belle. Without warning, tears spilled down her face and she hugged him again. ‘Oh this is all my fault. That was awful.’ Sniffling, she drew back and brushed his hair out of his face. ‘Why would you do this? All that pain. So much pain. Why –why would you even do that to yourself?’

Rumple stroked her cheek delicately with the back of his finger. ‘How else can a beast show its love?’ he asked sadly. ‘How are you here?’

‘I had help from an old friend. I couldn’t wake you. I tried talking to you, kissing you. I couldn’t wake you.’

‘Deep sleep. Dream within a dream. The world could be ending right now and I wouldn’t have heard it. You came all this way, for me?’

‘You would have done the same for me.’

‘I was so lost. I’ve been here alone for so long that I had forgotten who I was.’

‘But I found you,’ said Belle softly. ‘However lost you are, I will find you again.’

‘How’s our little one?’ Rumple placed his hand on her flat stomach beneath her gold dress. ‘I’m sorry I let you go through this alone.’

He thought he’d missed her entire pregnancy. Maybe even the birth.

‘Rumple, it’s okay,’ Belle assured him. ‘The baby’s okay. I haven’t even had my first scan yet. I couldn’t bear going there without you. You never got to do this before Bae was born. What would I have told your child?’

‘That their papa loves them very much.’

‘And me?’ Belle asked nervously.

‘My heart will always belong to you.’

‘You still love me?’

‘I never stopped.’

‘Everything I did… I used the dagger against you, repeatedly. I called you a beast. I banished you with no money or a cane. I kissed another man. I broke your heart at the well where we were married. I rejected your true loves kiss. I told you I’d rather stay under a sleeping curse with our child than make a life with you – a sleeping curse I got from the woman who killed your son. How can you still love me?’

‘Because you’re my true love,’ said Rumple truthfully. ‘Because I can’t help it. Because you’re Belle.’

‘I love you, Rumple. All of you. Even the parts that belonged to the Darkness. I lost sight of that. I was so happy to have you back I forgot you were suffering. I should’ve seen.’

‘I didn’t let you see.’

‘But I should have!’ Belle argued. ‘You died to save us! We dragged you back to life! Your son died! That witch imprisoned you, tortured you, enslaved you, she decided your fate for over a year! Of course you weren’t okay! How could I be so blind? Oh yes, because I’m a foolish, gullible girl who wanted a happily ever after like in my books, and when it didn’t turn out that way I couldn’t handle it! Couldn’t handle that real life isn’t a fairy tale! It’s not fair.’

‘Life isn’t fair. I know that better than anyone. I’m sorry, Belle. I’m sorry I let you down.’

‘As am I. I’m sorry, Rumple. I love you.’

‘I love you too. Eternally.’

‘Can you forgive me?’

‘For what?’

‘Everything. Undoing your sacrifice. Getting your son killed. Taking you for granted. Abusing the dagger. Banishing you without a backwards look. Trying to replace you. Making you question my love for you. Making you feel worthless. Making you think you had something to prove. Using your love as a weapon. For giving up on us. I don’t need a hero. I just want you. A man or a beast – I love you, whoever you are. I love Rumplestiltskin, just as you are. I can’t live without you.’

‘Nor I without you. Magic, life… it’s meaningless without you. And you are forgiven. Always and completely forgiven. I love you.’

‘And I love you too. And I forgive you. I never want to be Miss French again, Rumple. Never. I want to be your sweetheart again.’

Rumple rested his forehead against Belle’s, smiling. ‘You’ll always be my sweetheart, Belle.’

‘Say it again,’ Belle pleaded softly. She needed to hear him say it.

‘My sweetheart,’ Rumple whispered reverently. He kissed her forehead. ‘My darling Belle.’ He kissed her nose. ‘My wife.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘My brave, beautiful, brilliant Belle.’ He kissed the sensitive spot on her neck, trailing down to her bare shoulder and back to her creamy neck.

Gods how she’d missed this. Missed him. ‘Why did we end up here again?’ Belle wondered, looking around the castle.

Rumple knew the answer. ‘To see if we can get it right this time. Third time’s the charm. Let’s give them some fireworks.’

Belle’s eyes widened. He was willing to give up his power for her. ‘Is that what you want?’

Rumple looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I want you. I wasn’t just waking you and saving our child; I was letting you break my curse. I was choosing you.’

‘You’d be powerless,’ Belle reminded him.

‘What’s the point of power if I have no one to protect? That’s all it ever was, Belle. To protect my loved ones. The same way Emma and Regina use their magic to protect their loved ones. If the choice is love or power, there is no choice. All I want is a life with you. For you, I would be the best man I can be.’

Belle smiled. ‘Let’s go home,’ she whispered.

Rumple smiled. ‘My darling… we already are.’

He was right; wherever they were, as long as they were together, they were home.

They met in a tender kiss. She felt it this time; a growing warmth beneath her lips. She didn’t need to open her eyes to see the scales peeling away from Rumple’s lips and spreading out across his peaceful face. They felt a contented glow inside of them. As the kiss deepened it grew brighter, white-hot, like a supernatural glow radiating from their souls. The great hall, already filled with purest sunlight, suddenly became flooded with it.

The world disappeared in a blinding white light as they felt themselves rising, as if their true love was lifting them up, back to where they belonged…


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fire on fire would normally kill us  
> With this much desire, together, we're winners  
> They say that we're out of control and some say we're sinners  
> But don't let them ruin our beautiful rhythms  
> 'Cause when you unfold me and tell me you love me  
> And look in my eyes  
> You are perfection, my only direction  
> It's fire on fire
> 
> Sam Smith, Fire On Fire (Watership Down)

Belle opened her eyes like it was the most strenuous task she’d ever undertaken. When she managed to prize them open, it was a minute before she recovered from the deepest sleep of her life and remembered where she was. She was lying on her marital bed, fully clothed, one hand resting on her slightly swollen stomach. She was awake, her baby bump was back, so that must mean –

She turned her head quickly to look at her love. Rumple’s eyes were closed, but as she watched his head fell limply sideways towards her. For one moment she thought it was only because of her shifting position. Then his eyes blinked slowly open revealing intense, if slightly bleary, brown eyes. They smiled when they saw each other.

‘If this is a dream, I never want to wake up,’ said Rumple contentedly.

‘And if it’s real?’ Belle asked.

‘Then it’s good to be alive.’

As one they rolled onto their sides and hugged.

‘You did it, Belle,’ Rumple murmured into her shoulder. ‘You didn’t just storm the castle; you burnt it to the ground.’

‘And you moved heaven and earth for me,’ said Belle. She pulled back and beamed at her Handsome Hero. ‘Who needs a fairy tale when I have you?’

‘My Heartsome Heroine.’

They kiss passionately, like they were trying to cram in a thousand lost kisses.

‘Okay. Um…’ Merlin who was sitting in a chair in the corner loudly made his presence known, breaking up their reunion. ‘If I don’t say something now, thing’s will start to get embarrassing.’

Rumple pulled his wife closer, his lips near her ear, glaring at the intruder. ‘Belle!’ he whispered furiously. ‘There’s a dead sorcerer in our house. How did this happen?’

Merlin grinned, rising to his feet.

Belle laughed, carding her fingers through his hair to calm him down, unable to stop smiling. ‘Well, you had Morpheus, I have Merlin.’ She gave said wizard a look, ‘Which doesn’t give you the right to hypnotize me without my consent.’

Merlin bowed to her. ‘I apologize. It was regrettable, but necessary. It was the only chance we had of not only putting you to sleep but to travel deep enough to reach your husband. I didn’t want to worry you. And subjects are more susceptible when their guard is down. Rest assured it won’t happen again.’

‘It better not. If you ever do something like that to me again without warning me…’

Belle left the sentence hanging.

‘Yes?’

‘You’ll know when it happens,’ Rumple assured him. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you worry about?’

Merlin looked amused. ‘Good to meet you properly, Rumplestiltskin.’

‘I’ve heard a lot about the great Merlin. Most notably that you were dead.’

‘Funny how thing turn out, isn’t it?’ Merlin picked up the dagger from the dresser and examined the blade, smiling. ‘Amor vincit omnia.’

He showed them the blank blade. The curse was broken. The Dark One was destroyed. Rumplestiltskin was free.

‘How do you feel?’ Belle asked Rumple.

She didn’t want to make the same mistake and assume everything was all right. It may have been Rumple’s choice, but he’d just given up the curse he’d lived with for three hundred years. His power. His armour. His means of protecting and providing for him family. He was bound to be feeling vulnerable and unsure.

‘Strange,’ Rumple admitted truthfully.

‘You don’t regret your decision?’

Rumple shook his head. ‘No. I feel… different.’

‘You are different,’ said Merlin. ‘From the moment you were born.’

Rumple frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means, despite of your severed destiny, you have achieved where myself, Emma Swan and others have failed: laid the darkness to rest. You’re still the man you were always meant to be. And your sacrifice has cancelled out the violation and has restored your birthright.’

‘What’re you saying?’

Merlin spread his arms wide and bowed to Rumple. ‘Welcome back… Saviour.’

Belle’s eyes widened at the title. She knew Rumple was a good man, knew that there was a hero inside him, but never did she dream he was the Saviour. And not just _a_ Saviour – _the_ Saviour!

‘Rumple? You’re the Saviour? Is that true?’

Rumple lifted his hand, turning it this way and that. ‘I can feel it… light under my skin… I can’t reach it…’

‘Think about everyone you love,’ said Merlin. ‘And everyone who loves you. Show us the light, Rumple.’

Rumple closed his eyes and focused. He thought of Belle, Baelfire, his second born growing inside the woman he loved, who had just saved his soul. White light shone out of his skin, lighter than Emma’s.

‘Rumple…’ Belle breathed. It was beautiful!

Rumple opened his eyes and extinguished the light. ‘If my fate was cut, as you say, why has my magic been given back to me? One good deed doesn’t erase centuries of darkness.’

‘Because you deserve it,’ said Belle. ‘You sacrificed your soul to protect your family, and then you gave it up to save us. I can’t think of anyone more deserving.’

‘I didn’t ask for this.’

‘Case in point.’

‘It will take some getting used to,’ Merlin cautioned. ‘You and your magic getting to know each other again. But for a man with infinite knowledge of the magical art, it’ll be like riding a bike.’

‘Thank you…’ said Rumple, and he meant it. ‘Not many people would’ve lifted a finger to help me. Present company excluded,’ he added to Belle.

‘I’m a fan of true love. And your stories are as old as time. It’s not over yet.’ Merlin swept over to the window. ‘I take my leave. The very best of luck and happiness to you both. And the little one.’

Merlin transformed back into the brown pygmy owl and flew off into the night.

‘Was he always that showy-offy in life?’ asked Rumple.

‘More of the same as you. In Camelot he called me the clever one.’

‘Hm. Then I like him too. Laying aside enchanting you without permission.’

‘He did help save you; so I suppose I should let this one go – this time.’ Belle hesitated, eying Rumple’s chest. ‘Rumple… can I see it?’

Rumple knew what she was asking. He gripped his shirt as if he was hiding something indecent. ‘Belle, please…’

‘I need to see it. I need to see what that witch did to you.’

Slowly and carefully, Rumple unbuttoned his shirt. He closed his eyes and passed his hand over his chest, revealing the circular Z brand.

‘Oh Rumple…’ Belle breathed, lightly touching it with her finger.

Rumple looked haunted as if the events were still fresh in his mind, his eyes downcast. ‘I’m sorry, Belle.’

‘Hey.’ Belle touched him arm. ‘You don’t have to apologise for something that happened to you. Just because Zelena branded you doesn’t me –’

‘She didn’t… I did it to myself… without the dagger.’ Rumple swallowed. ‘She said if I didn’t willingly make myself hers, she would make me do to you what she did to me…’

_Zelena ordered Rumple to pick up the red hot rod from the fireplace and, after making him make it dancing over his body, finally settled on the perfect spot. Rumple held the rod over his heart._

_‘You would brand me just to make me yours? You have my dagger and therefore my soul. I’m already yours.’_

_‘I control you, certainly.’ Zelena leaned against the table, admiring the sight of Rumplestiltskin kneeling at her feet. ‘But this way make it so much more… official. More binding.’_

_‘Then why don’t you just order me? I’m getting cramp.’_

_Zelena said nothing._

_‘Because you can’t. If you have to force me, it won’t count. You have the power right there in your hand. You can command me to love you, you can erase my memories, give me fake ones. But it won’t be real. What good is love and respect if it has to be stolen? I’m never going to give you what you want, Zelena. So, are you going to do it yourself and be done?’_

_Zelena chuckled. ‘Of course not. It wouldn’t work anyway. The choice is yours. You’re going to do it willingly. You’re going to be mine because you_ want _to.’_

_‘And_ why _would I do that?’_

_‘Because if you don’t, you’re going to pay your little Belle a visit. And you’re going to show her what a real beast is?’_

_Rumple’s hands trembled on the rod._

_‘You’re going to find her, and you’re not going to speak a word to her. Take her. Take her_ hard. _Don’t be gentle. Let the darkness out. You’re just going to fuck her like an animal until she’s terrified of your touch, of the very sight of you, until she sees you for the beast you are. Let it be her very last thought of you, before you rip her heart out and make her_ watch _as you crush it. That is what will happen, unless you pledge yourself to me.’_

_Rumple’s eyes widened in fear. ‘No,’ he pleaded, shaking his head._

_‘As I say, the choice is yours. Show me. Show me you’re mine. Do it. Unless your own skin means more to you than your precious Belle?’_

_He had no choice. Either way Belle was lost to him. At least this way she’d live. Rumple rammed the dreaded letter into his chest, screaming in agony as he forced it deeper, marking himself as Zelena’s in every way._

_Zelena’s smile was wider and more malicious than when she killed his son…_

Rumple stared at the opposite wall, lost in the memory of the night he betrayed not only himself but his love for Belle. So he couldn’t see Belle’s look of horror.

‘She ruined me,’ said Rumple. ‘She’s under my skin, in my head and in our bed. It didn’t matter that I failed to kill her. I’ll never be free of her.’

‘Rumple, you are not ruined,’ said Belle.

‘How can you say that? You saw what happened.’

‘I saw that woman rape you. You did what you had to do to survive. To protect me, just like you’ve always tried to protect me.’ Then she realised. ‘Did you… did you think I would hate you for it? You were the victim.’

Rumple’s lip quivered and he dragged his wet eyes back to Belle. ‘I didn’t want you to think of me like _that_. With _her_. She broke me. She knew it. We both did. I didn’t…’ Rumple broke with shame of what he’d done and of not telling Belle, even if she did turn away in disgust, ‘I didn’t think you’d still want me!’

Belle cupped his face in her hands and wiped his tears away tenderly with thumbs. ‘You’re my true love. You’re my Rumple. And I will always want you. Zelena doesn’t own you. You belong to no one else but me. And I belong to you. Nothing will ever change that. If our places were reversed, if Gaston or the Sheriff of Nottingham did the same to me, would you think me less than you?’

Rumple’s eyes darkened at the very hypothetical notion of any man doing to Belle what Zelena did to him. ‘I’d flay them alive for so much as wishing to enact such an action against you,’ he growled.

‘And I want to tear Zelena’s throat out – and I’m a pacifist. She had your body, but I’ll be damned if she has your soul as well!’

‘How can you have me like this?’

‘I will have you any way I can. Always. That’s what true love is: unconditional.’

Rumple sobbed. Belle kissed him, whispering sweet nothings and words of comfort until his tears had run dry and the great weight he’d carried for so long had lifted. He eyed the brand that was as much a dark shadow over him than the Dark One.

He held out the dagger to her. It was useless as a magical artefact, but it could still cut through flesh rather nicely. ‘Make me yours again.’

Belle drew away for the blade. It was just a knife now, but she still hated herself for abusing it. ‘Rumple –’

‘It won’t work if I do it. Please, Belle.’

He was asking her for help. If this would help put the past behind him, how could she refuse. Belle took the dagger.

They moved this to the dressing table.

‘Do you have laudanum?’

‘No.’ Rumple, who’d pulled his shirt off his shoulders to give her better access, shook his head at the offer of pain relief or to be sedated during the procedure. ‘I need to see it. I need to feel it when you cut her out of me.’

‘You’ll be scarred forever.’

‘What’s another scar?’

Belle sighed and braced her free hand on his shoulder. She held the blade over the unnecessary blot on her husband beautiful body. ‘This is going to hurt.’

Rumple nodded and braced himself. He grunted in pain and gripped Belle wrist for support as she cut Zelena’s brand out of his chest. Rumple caught the bloody, defiled slice of flesh in his hand. He glared at it and threw it in the fire. It sparked and glowed green before being purged in the flames.

Rumple pressed a fluffy white towel to his chest to staunch the bleeding, breathing deeply through the pain.

‘How do you feel?’ Belle asked anxiously.

Rumple sat back with a great sigh, panting, a little weep of relief escaping him. The chains that had shackled him were broken. ‘I feel free…’ He stared at his saviour twice over with inexpressible gratitude and gripped her in a one-armed hug. ‘Thank you,’ he sniffled.

‘She’s gone, Rumple,’ Belle soothed him, rubbing his back. ‘She has no power over you anymore. It’s going to be all right. You’re going to be all right. You’re mine. And I’m yours.’

‘Forever.’

Belle cleaned him up and stitched up the wound, the first aid kit from the kitchen sat open beside her. She had tended many wounded soldiers during the Ogres War. Rumple would now have a vertical scar to join the horizontal scar from where he sacrificed himself to save them all from Peter Pan.

She taped gauze over it and lightly kissed it. Rumple closed his eyes at her touch, moaning slightly.

‘Did I hurt you?’ she asked. She thought she was being gentle.

‘No,’ Rumple reassured her. ‘Thus from thy lips, my sin is purged.’

Belle smiled at the quotation and faked a mock gasp, touching her lips. ‘Then have my lips the sin that they have took?’

‘O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.’

They kissed.

‘You kiss by the book,’ said Belle in a sultry voice.

Rumple grinned.

Before they carried on and both ended up dead in a tomb, Belle’s attention turned to his hair. She ran her fingers through it. She had only ever known Rumple with long hair, curly and straight. But if cut properly, and not butchered as Zelena had done, it would actually be a good look on Rumple.

‘You know, you looked pretty good with short hair.’

‘I looked like a hedgehog,’ said Rumple ruefully.

‘I love hedgehogs. And I have a very gentle touch. It was just a thought.’

Rumple looked in the mirror and examined with his own hair, brushing it out of his face to see what it look like to have it shorter. ‘You know… I might try something different. Do you mind?’

Twenty minutes later Belle had cut Rumple’s hair. After checking to see if it was all even, she stood up and removed the towel from his shoulders, brushing away the strays and moved round so Rumple can see her handy work in the mirror.

But would he like it?

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Rumple stared at his reflection in the mirror, actually leaning forward to get a better look at the stranger looking back at him. He looked shocked, but not in a ‘what on earth have you done’ sort of way. It was as if he was seeing himself for the first time, no longer hidden under curtains of hair or years of repression. ‘I look like a completely different person,’ he said in a hushed voice.

Belle wrapped her arms around him from behind, kissing his cheek, smiling at his reflection. ‘You look like the person you are on the inside. You look very handsome. It highlights your eyes. Do you like it?’

Rumple turned his head this way and that, running his hand over his small floof. He gave a small nod of approval. ‘I do. Thank you, Belle. I have something for you too.’

He limped to one of the spare rooms, bracing himself on the wall, and returned carrying an old friend from another life; a tatty handmade dog toy.

‘Who’s this?’ said Belle, smiling as she reached out to stroke it soft head.

One of its ears pointed upwards while the other flopped over, its brown fur was worn in places because it was so old and it had a couple of sown on patches where the seams had split. But sometimes the best book has the dustiest jacket, the best teacup is chipped, and sometimes the best toy has patches.

‘This is Patches,’ said Rumple. ‘I made him for Bae. He used to guard him from his nightmares while we were apart for the night. I thought I’d bring him out of retirement for the little one’s arrival.’

‘Well it’s lovely to meet you, Patches.’ She giggled as Rumple playfully made Patches snuffle in her ear with accompanying doggy sound effects. ‘Oh!’

Her sudden gasp was like a switch that turned Rumple from teasing to concern in an instant. ‘Belle? What is it? Is it the baby?’ He placed his hand on her stomach, trying to sense what was wrong.

‘No,’ said Belle hastily. ‘I mean, yes, but nothing’s wrong. I just remembered… it’s my first scan today.’

Rumple’s hand remained glued to her stomach as he looked up at her, his eye wide at the prospect of seeing their baby at this early stage of its development. ‘We’ll be able to see the baby?’

‘Yes… Would you like see?’

Rumple nodded. ‘If you want me to.’

‘It’s your baby too, Rumple,’ Belle told him. She knew what she said to him in her dream world, treating their baby as if she was the sole parent in their life. But that stopped now. ‘You never got to enjoy this part. I want you there with me when we see our child for the first time. Even if right now they’re small, grey and fuzzy. And…’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t want to do this without you. I don’t know what I’m doing.’

‘None of us do.’ Rumple took her hands in both of his own. ‘But we can do it together.’

Belle nodded, feeling better about it. Rumple smiled encouragingly.

‘I’m here for you, sweetheart. There’s nobody but us now.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Me too.’

‘But you’ve done this before.’

‘Three centuries ago. I might be a bit rusty.’

‘And who’s going to look after them. We both have jobs.’

‘We’ll take it in turns. Or if its twins we can each look after one.’

‘You wouldn’t be able to breastfeed them.’

‘I could try.’

‘Oh, be serious, Rumple.’

‘Okay. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we’ll manage. The baby will tell us.’

Belle snorted. ‘Oh will they?’

‘But, of course. Our baby’s going to be a genius. How can it fail with you looks and my brains?’

Belle raised her eyebrows.

‘Yeah, okay, with _your_ looks and _your_ brains.’

‘ _Our_ looks and brains.’

‘They’ll be unstoppable. But Belle?’

‘What?’

‘It’s going to be brilliant,’ said Rumple happily.

‘It’s the beginning of a great adventure.’

‘Exactly.’

The first of many to come… And then when the time was right, they would leave; see the world beyond Storybrooke. And the worlds beyond that. Perhaps even save a few while they were at it. And when their adventures were done, retire to some quiet place on the edges of realms somewhere and live out their golden years together.

As long as they were together, they could do anything. If one of them should stumble or fall, the other would always be there to catch them or pick them back up again. If they ever got lost, they would find each other again. No matter what happened, no matter what anyone said, no matter how hopeless, they would never stop fighting for each other.

As long as they had each other, they were home.

_Based on analysis of these 76 stories, da Silva and Tehrani reconstructed ancestral Indo-European tales to show the progression of certain tales. You might recognize ATU 425C “ **Beauty and the Beast** ” and ATU 500 “ **The Name of the Supernatural Helper** ” (which later became “ **Rumpelstiltskin** ”). While many folklorists had believed that these two tales were written down in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, these findings make the case that these stories existed in the oral tradition as far back as **2,500-6,000 years ago**._

<https://www.tor.com/2016/02/22/fairy-tales-older-linguistic-analysis/>


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Goodies2 and Grace52373, who wanted one more chapter!
> 
> Warning: this chapter is heavy anti-CS, anti-Zelena and anti-Regina.

They spent the whole weekend to themselves. Belle wasn’t exactly in a rush to tell everyone Rumple was back. The questions, the demands, the accusations and the lynch mobs could wait. They had a lot of lost time to catch-up on. And no way was anyone barging in on and ruining their moment during her sonogram.

Given that the last two pregnancies Dr Whale had dealt had both resulted in him being thrown against a wall, Dr Lily Pond was assigned to perform her ultrasound. To see their growing baby for the first on the screen was truly a magical experience. All the curses, fairy dust, books and artefacts couldn’t compare. She and Rumple gripped each other’s hands tightly as they watched, fighting back tears, smiling so wide their faces hurt.

They made this miracle.

But they couldn’t avoid the town forever. Belle, dressed in a new blue dress, straightened Rumple favourite tie, just as she’d done the day he’d returned from Neverland. She looked her husband up and down; handsome as ever.

‘I brought you this.’ Belle held up a new cane. It was almost the same as his old gold handled cane, except it was mahogany brown instead of black.

‘Did we lose the other one?’ Rumple asked.

‘You told Bae that you kept it to remind yourself of the man you were, and shall no longer be. I thought we could make a fresh start here too. I saw it and thought of you. New cane for a new man.’

Rumple took it and appraised it. ‘Well, it’s very handsome, sleek, Victorian cane, with a gold handle, but –’

He got a surprise as Belle pulled the handle revealing a sword hidden inside.

‘It’s a sword!’ said Belle enthusiastically. ‘And –’

She wrapped her hand in a handkerchief and removed the blade and the golden handle was suddenly a gun.

‘Never let it be said my husband’s powerless. I just thought, you know, while you’re still getting the hang of your light magic, at least you’ll still be able to defend yourself. A cane’s a cane’s in the end. But if you rather not –’

Rumple cupped Belle face in his hands and kissed her in gratitude. ‘Thank you. It’s perfect, Belle.’

Belle smiled. ‘You’re welcome.’

Rumple reassembled the cane and tested its sturdiness taking his weight off his bad foot. His face lit up like she’d given him the world. ‘Shall we go for breakfast?’

‘Yes, please. Baby’s starving. Just promise you won’t be revolted with my new cravings. Even I can’t believe I can eat a hamburger with pickled herring.’

Rumple held up his hands. ‘If it’s gummy bears in shepherd’s pie, you shall have it.’

‘And gallons of ice-cream?’ Belle added hopefully.

‘More than happy to help you consume that amount.’

They headed over to Granny’s Diner. At the gate Rumple checked his wallet, smiling at his copy of the sonogram picture of their baby.

‘You’re still thrilled to bits about it, aren’t you?’ said Belle happily.

Rumple nodded, stroking it with his finger. ‘Just like to keep checking. Make sure I didn’t imagine it.’ It wasn’t just the baby he needed to reassure himself about, but the ‘GOLD, Belle’ at the top. ‘I never thought I’d receive such a blessing twice in my life.’

‘Just shows: you should never give up hope.’

‘Yes.’ Rumple put his wallet away safely in his breast pocket. He eyed his reflection in the window of the diner door, and the prospect of coming into contact with the heroes and the townspeople for the first time since he woke up, with a hint of foreboding. ‘I wonder how they’re going to react when they see me?’

‘You’ve never cared before.’

‘Well, a lot’s changed. My hair’s cut for the first time in forever. I’m no longer the Dark One. And I technically out rank Miss Swan. Not to mention they all still see me as the town monster.’

Belle took his hands. ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to collect our order and have breakfast in our booth. And anyone who has a problem with us being here are free to leave. It’s their problem, not ours.’

Rumple nodded.

They entered, Rumple holding the door open like a gentleman to allow Belle in first and almost bumped into Emma and Hook. The pirate really did seem to be rubbing off on the Saviour, who was now wearing black, and seemed glued to his side, her arms wrapped around his like a kraken.

They stared dumfounded at Rumple.

‘Miss Swan, please tell your codfish to close his mouth. It’s rude.’

Hook closed his mouth, or rather gritted his teeth.

‘You’re awake,’ said Emma incredulously.

‘I am,’ Rumple agreed.

‘You cut your hair.’

‘Well technically Belle did, but yes. Do you like it?’

‘And you’re limping.’

‘You’re on sparkling form today. You should go on _Mastermind_. “Next contestant, Emma Swan from Storybrooke, Maine. Special subject – the bleeding obvious”.’

‘You’re supposed to be asleep forever.’

‘And you’ve put on three pounds since we last saw each other, but I wasn’t going to mention it. Blissful ignorance must agree with you.’

‘Two and a half,’ Emma muttered grudgingly.

‘Mm. Let’s say three.’

‘What’re you doing here?’ Emma asked coldly.

‘Just came to have breakfast with my wife.’

‘Why?’

‘Belle and the baby need food and I’m starving. Weeks of sleep tends to give you quite an appetite.’

‘ _Why are you limping_?’

‘You’ve read Henry’s book; I shattered my ankle so my son wouldn’t grow up without a father. You remember my son Neal, don’t you, Miss Swan? Henry’s _real_ father, who grew up without a mother because of the man you are currently cavorting with.’

‘Stop playing games, Crocodile!’ Hook growled. ‘How are you awake and why are you crippled?’

‘I kissed my husband, it broke both his curses and he woke up,’ said Belle. ‘He’s awake and no longer the Dark One.’

Hook looked taken aback for a moment, then he grinned nastily. ‘So you’re a cripple and powerless. What a comedown.’

‘Powerless? Me?’ He could’ve showed them his sword-gun-cane, but this would be much more satisfying. Just to see the looks on their faces. Rumple showed off his light magic and made his hand glow as bright as the moon, just enough to convince them. ‘Never.’

‘That’s not possible,’ said Hook as if this was some sort of trick.

Rumple de-luminated his hand. ‘I prefer not probable.’

‘What is that?’ said Emma.

‘My reward.’

Emma seemed to find this as difficult to process as the realization that the curse was real. ‘How is any of this possible? How are you awake? How are you no longer the Dark One?’

‘True Love’s Kiss breaks any curse. Didn’t you know that?’

‘Your kiss failed!’ Hook shouted. ‘Twice! You couldn’t wake your own wife because she doesn’t want to be with you!’

‘I am here, you know,’ said Belle irritably. ‘And for the record, true love’s kiss can’t work if both parties are cursed.’

‘And your kiss couldn’t save Miss Swan from the Dark One, and you’d sucked face multiple times in Camelot before you were turned into one,’ Rumple pointed out. ‘Not to mention your share a heart plan failed to resurrect you. What does that say about your relationship?’

‘He was dead for too long,’ said Emma lamely. ‘We passed the scales test in the Underworld. I saved Hook from the fire. That proves we’re true love.’

‘You _are_ true love, Miss Swan. You could’ve pushed Donald Trump out of the fire – gods knows why – and you would’ve passed the test. If anyone was your true love, apart from your son, it’s Neal. The necklace he gave you survived curses. Only an object borne of True Love can do that. Like a wedding ring. Or a chipped cup. And certainly doesn’t include murder trophy rings.’

Granny called from the counter, ‘Order up for “Gold”!’

‘Now we really must be going.’

Rumple tried to move passed them but Hook stopped him.

‘You’re not fooling anyone. Whatever you’re planning, Crocodile, we’ll stop you,’ Hook said threateningly.

‘You don’t want to do that,’ said Rumple quietly.

‘What’re you going to do, coward?’

‘Oh no, not me. But I know for a fact if you stop our order of hamburgers topped with pickled herring, you’ll have a very angry and very hungry pregnant woman to deal with. Hungry and hormonal – dangerous combination.’

‘There is no evil plan,’ said Belle impatiently to these warmongers. ‘The only plan we do have is getting ready for the baby to arrive. If you need our help, you are of course more than welcome to visit us at the shop. If there’s a queue – join it.’

Baby Robyn was crying. Zelena was jiggling her trying to sooth her. Her red hair was sticking up on end; she had dark shadows under her pale blue eyes, and looked close to crying herself. Look what motherhood had done to the Wicked Witch of the West. All her scheming of having Robin Hood’s baby to get back at her sister and to have someone who would love her and only her, had all come back to bite her in the arse. Just like Regina, who had only wanted Henry in the first place out of necessity to fill the hole she’d made in her heart, not anticipating that becoming a mother was no piece of cake.

The other customers were muttering; annoyed with the persistent wailing, tutting that Zelena couldn’t quiet her baby, sympathy for Robyn at having such a mother.

‘Ssh, ssh, Munchkin,’ said Zelena desperately, patting her small back. ‘It’s been eight hours. How are you not tired?’

She shrieked as Baby Robyn spit up on her, staining her green dress with old, sour smelling milk and continued to cry.

‘Please can you take her?’ she begged to Granny, already bundling Robyn into her arms. ‘I need to use the bathroom.

Zelena hurried off to clean herself up and no doubt have a little weep herself. Granny settled Robyn in her baby carrier, but quickly became distracted by something happening in the kitchen.

‘No, Stu! They said no chilli!’

Granny hurried to the kitchen to stop the botch order. Baby Robyn continued to cry. Rumple got up, lifted Robyn out of the carried, laid her on the table and set about rewrapping her blankets with practiced hands, tucking them in tightly. Robyn suddenly fell silent, blinking curiously up at Rumple.

When Zelena came back she staggered at the silence and wondered for a moment if she’d gone deaf. She stared in shock at Rumple’s efficiency and that he’d managed to calm her daughter.

‘Baby’s like the feeling of being constricted,’ said Rumple, answering Zelena’s unasked question. ‘It’s not until we’re older that we fuel our desire to be free. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?’

Baby Robyn cooed, smiling, before emitting a tiny yawn. Rumple picked her up and made as if to hand her back to Zelena but gave her to Granny instead, the latter smirking. Zelena rolled her eyes, glaring at him and took her daughter back.

‘How –’ she began.

‘I was a father in case you’ve forgotten,’ said Rumple coldly. ‘I had a son.’

‘Yes. And he’s dead.’ Zelena kissed her baby loudly and deliberately. ‘And now I have _my_ beautiful firstborn child. That’s the circle of life for you.’

Rumple started forward angrily, but Belle put a hand on his arm. ‘Rumple.’

‘Careful, dearie,’ said Zelena, smiling obnoxiously. ‘We don’t want to strain your heart now. Remember? If you hurt me you’re only hurting yourself.’

Rumple smiled and put a hand on his chest. ‘Belle, cut you out of me. So the only one who should be afraid of pain is _you_. I don’t care what happens to you, I don’t care what happens to me. All I care about is what happens to my family. And you are going to leave both of them alone.’

‘Am I?’

‘Ah-ah! _I’m_ speaking. And for your daughter’s sake, you’re going to listen. You took away someone I love. You come anywhere near Belle or our baby, or use anything or someone else to hurt them; I’m going to take away someone you love. I’ll make sure Regina gets sole custody of Robyn. And I don’t think rape and murder works in your favour. Nor does using a child as a weapon to hurt your sister. So maybe you should stop worrying about me and start worrying about being the mother this child deserves. Or I will find someone more deserving.’

Zelena left with Baby Robyn. Rumple sat back down and rested his forehead against his clasped hands, breathing deeply, as if it had taken every bit of self-restraint he had not to snap her neck like a twig.

‘Are you okay?’ said Belle gently.

‘She doesn’t deserve Robyn,’ said Rumple quietly. ‘That poor child, to have to grow up with such a wicked mother.’

‘Now you can’t judge someone on who their parents are, now, can you?’

Rumple lowered his hands, resting them on the table. ‘Zelena only wanted a child the same reason Regina first wanted Henry. They _needed_ a child, not because of some maternal yearning to become a mother. That was the only good thing about cursed Storybrooke. Law and contracts that protect us from this kind of thing. They should’ve been locked up long ago. Myself and Hook included.’

‘Forget about them.’ Belle reached across the table and took his hand. ‘Let’s talk about something more pleasant. Like… what do you fancy, a boy or a girl?’

Rumple smiled, squeezing her hands back. ‘I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.’ He considered for a moment. ‘I suppose… I always had the fantasy of a daughter. Another mini you running rings around me.’

‘She’s going to be a daddy’s girl, I know it.’

‘Whatever my girls want, they shall have. How’s the pickled herring-hamburger combo?’

Belle examined said food stuff between her burger and bun. ‘Sounds gross, looks gross, smells gross, feels gross –’ She took a big bite out of her burger and pickled herring. ‘– it’s delicious!’ she declared in a muffled voice.

Rumple laughed at her enthusiasm. They finished their meal, but were then interrupted by Regina.

‘So it’s true. Rumplestiltskin’s cut his hair! It highlights your eyes.’

Rumple looked unimpressed and unconvinced that she’d come all this way just to get a look at the ex-Dark One with a new haircut. ‘The answer is no, Regina.’

‘You haven’t heard the question yet.’

‘You’re here to ask me to help you clean up your mess. You released the dark part of yourself, failed to kill you and you’re now running havoc all over town because you couldn’t learn to deal with your rage. Wouldn’t it have been easier to do grief counseling?’

‘It’s your fault!’ Regina snapped. ‘You made me the Evil Queen!’

Rumple stood up calmly. ‘I didn’t force you to do anything. Yes, I wanted you to become the Evil Queen you were destined to be, who would cast my curse so I could find my son. But you have a brain. You know the difference between right and wrong. If someone offered to sell you drugs and you took them...that's on _you_. You chose to take those drugs, you chose to use them; I just simply gave you the opportunity. You knew my methods of teaching and still you came back. You could’ve gone into that tavern and met your dear Robin Hood, but your vengeance was more important to you than love. And I certainly didn’t tell you to slaughter an entire village, send children into the blind witch’s cottage to be eaten or make the Huntsman your sex slave. I did warn you of the consequences but you did it anyway. You’re accountable for your own actions. We all are. But as your former teacher, I will give you one last piece of advice.’

‘What?’

‘Pull yourself together.’

‘If you’re not going to help –’

‘I just did. Pull – yourself – together. Rejoin with your dark side and all will be well.’

‘Belle, tell your –’

‘Rumple’s right, Regina,’ Belle interrupted. She wasn’t Rumple’s handler nor Regina’s leverage. Not anymore. ‘You’re your problem, Regina, but you’re also your solution. What you’ve done, what you’re doing, it’s worse than being evil, that’s just being too weak to be good. The Evil Queen isn’t a name for your anger; she’s a part of you. She _is_ you. The same woman who locked me up in a tower and an asylum, who gave me fake memories, who stole my heart to force me to say all those nasty things to my dying husband before making me forget he needed my help and holding my life to ransom. No more whining, no more do overs, no more the-Evil-Queen-made-me-do-it or it’s-all-Rumple-s-fault, no more shortcuts and no more excuses. We’ve all got to live with our mistakes – and so do you. You need the Evil Queen to remember how far you’ve come and how much you’ve got to lose.’

She stood up too.

‘Good day, Your Majesty.’

They left the diner. As they passed _Game of Thorns,_ they saw Maurice through the window pruning the roses. When he looked up and saw his pregnant daughter and her husband he viciously cut off the red roses heads. Belle felt Rumple wrap his arm around her shoulders and cast her wet eyes down, leaning into him, wrapping her arm around his waist. She placed her hand on her stomach and Rumple (his other hand occupied with his new cane) kissed the top of her head.

They went over to _It’s Never Too Gold For Ice Cream_ for dessert. Rumple had taken his favourite ice cream parlour after Ingrid’s death.

‘Will Regina listen to us?’ Belle asked as they shared a bowl of ice cream.

Rumple shrugged, taking a spoonful of sprinkle coated vanilla. ‘We gave her advice. Whether or not she chooses to take it is on her.’

‘I’m so glad you decided to keep this place open. This is amazing.’

‘Well, we’ve got to use these places or they’ll shut down.’

He fed Belle a spoonful of chocolate ice cream.

‘Grandpa?’

Henry stood in the doorway. He shifted awkwardly.

‘Hello Henry,’ said Rumple. ‘Come to sample some rocky road? Perhaps a cone?’

‘No… I came to say I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For trying to destroy magic,’ said Henry guiltily. ‘For stopping you from saving Belle. If she’d still been here when it happened I could’ve killed her _and_ the baby. I’m sorry for blaming you for my bad decision.’

‘Well, this family is no stranger to those. But you did create the portal that allowed me to find Belle. And for that I truly thank you.’

Henry smiled weakly. ‘You did it. You saved Belle.’

‘We saved each other,’ said Belle.

‘Like the hair. Suits you. Don’t take it the wrong way but it makes you look younger.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rumple.

‘How’s the baby?’

‘Fine. I’ll be the size of a boat with all the food they’re demanding.’

‘Anything making you nauseous yet?’

‘Just the smell of rum and cologne.’

‘No, darling, that’s just Hook. I experience the exact same sensation just by seeing him or hearing his name.’

Belle nudged him playfully.

‘I can’t wait to meet them. Gramps, can I… can I have my old job back?’

‘As my apprentice?’

‘For real this time. I haven’t exactly been the best grandson. And I really do want to hear stories about my dad when he was my age.’

‘I’d be honoured.’

‘Cool. Congratulations, you two.’ Henry turned to leave.

‘Henry.’ Rumple snapped his fingers and conjured a sundae with everything on top into Henry’s hand.

‘I don’t have any money.’

‘What sort of grandpa would I be if I didn’t spoil my grandson?’

Henry smiled and ran off.

After licking the bowl clean, they headed back to the pawnshop. In the backroom the curtains were drawn, LED tealight candles were on every surface. His spinning wheel sat in the middle of the room. Rumple turned questioningly to Belle.

‘You haven’t spun in so long. It breaks my heart to see you deny yourself of something you used to love. You not wanting to spin is like me not wanting to read. When you would spin you would look up at me sometimes and your eyes were always full of such love and happiness. The sound of you at the wheel was calming to me. I hated the silence when you were away on a long deal. I thought I’d help you rediscover your passion for it. And help channel your magic at the same time.’

Rumple eyed the spinning wheel as if it might sting or bite him. Or he sat down in front of it and suddenly be transported back in that cage in that storm cellar, which would be hell on the one hand, and a relief on the other; because maybe he could save his boy and prevent everything else that followed. And perhaps Zelena would’ve stayed dead.

‘I don’t think I can, Belle. I used to spin to forget. Now it just makes me remember things I’d rather forget. Just another thing Zelena took from me.’

Rumple had lost so much at Zelena’s hands; his freedom, his dignity, his sanity, his son… now not only couldn’t he see or think of meat pie without feeling sick but he’d lost the one thing that had been a constant throughout his troubled life. The one thing that had always brought him peace in the past. _Cleans the mind, sooths the soul…_

‘Let me help you. Sit.’

Rumple swallowed and sat on the stool. Belle sat down behind him, leaned in close, took his upper arms.

‘Alexa, play spinning playlist,’ said Belle.

Alexa in the corner activated at her command, and Unchained Melody, the theme from _Ghost_ started to play. Rumple chuckled, not failing to miss the reference, and felt more relaxed.

‘Okay, let’s begin,’ said Belle in a sultry voice, sending a pleasurable quiver down his spine. ‘What’s your first happy memory?’

Rumple started spinning, casting his mind back. ‘After my father left, the two Spinsters who lived in our village took me in. We didn’t have much but we got by. And after a hard days spinning, they would bake the most delicious meat pies. The hovel would be filled with the most wonderful smell. And after they’d cooled they always let me have the first bite. And as the food warmed my belly I forgot who I was… a boy who wasn’t wanted by his papa. They were the first people who believed I could do anything. They told me I would spin for kings someday.’

‘And they were right. I wish I could have met them.’

‘They would have loved you. I miss them so much. They were home.’

‘Look.’

Rumple blinked and saw the wool had turned…

‘…copper.’

‘It’s a start,’ said Belle encouragingly.

Rumple nodded. ‘It’s a start.’

Belle kissed the shell of his ear. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

Rumple leaned into her touch. ‘Let’s keep going.’

He continued to spin, listening to the sound of the music and focusing on Belle wrapped around him. As the wool passed through his fingers and the creak of the wheel soothed his soul he began to re-evaluate his thoughts regarding the spinning wheel. It was something that he knew he was good at and it gave him pride to know that he could support himself and those he loved with his craft. He thought back to the days and nights where he had spun quietly as his young son played on the floor or slept in the little bed. As Rumple talked more about Baelfire and the life they had together, the wool began to come out silver.

He thought of the nights back at the Dark Castle where he had spun as he watched his little Belle examining his collection when she would be cleaning it or begin to drift off to sleep to the book in her hand. He would smile as she drifted happily off to sleep on the chaise, her book sliding from her hand and coming to rest on the Persian carpet.

When he finally reached Belle, their child and the future that lay ahead of them, the wool spun into his signature gold.

‘Looks like you’ve got the hand of your magic now,’ said Belle proudly.

‘Indeed,’ said Rumple, looking and sounding please with himself. ‘And I’ve got my oldest friend back.’

Rumple stroked his wheel fondly. Belle’s help made him realise it didn’t represent what he thought it did. It had been a steadfast friend throughout his life, carrying him through fair weather and rough. It was something that he was good at, and it reminded him that he was capable of taking care of himself. He spun because he loved it. And that if he stopped spinning then Zelena would win. He would not let that witch take tis from him.

‘Do you think our children will like spinning?’

‘Of course they will.’

Rumple stared at the strand of gold wrapped around his finger. He couldn’t think of a better moment then now. He stood up from the stool and fashioned the gold into a ring, his back to Belle so that she couldn’t see what he was doing, particularly the finishing touch.

‘Rumple?’

Rumple sighed, feeling as nervous as the day he proposed to her. He turned back to Belle and got down on one knee. ‘Belle…’

He took her hand in his. It lightened his heart to see Belle’s wedding ring back on her finger, but he wanted them to have a fresh start. ‘I’ve made many, many mistakes. Done wrongs that must be put right. I wear the heaviest cloak of regret than any man alive. But I don’t regret loving you. Belle, if you’ll have me as I am now, if you’ll still have me…please will you marry me? Will you marry me after everything I’ve done? Will you still marry me after everything I’ve yet to do? Everything I am I give to you. My wife, my light, my True Love, my hero.’

Belle smiled through her tears. ‘Yes.’

Rumple smiled in relief and slipped the eternity ring on the ring finger of her right hand. The gold band was set with little white and blue diamonds. ‘Did you know that the carbon in human hair could be compressed into diamonds with your DNA in it?’

Belle shook her head. Then, realising where Rumple was going with this, her eyes widened as she started at the diamonds. ‘Is this…?’

Rumple nodded. ‘From strands of our hair. Seemed a shame to waste it. It did speed up the process a little. I want us to have a clean slate. And I didn’t exactly get down on one knee last time. No matter what happens, whether we be separated by time, distance or curses, we’ll always be together.’

It was the most romantic and personal gesture of love Belle had ever received. She cupped Rumple’s face in her ringed hands and kissed him. ‘I love you, Rumple. It’s beautiful.’

They kissed.

The shop bell jingled, signally the imminent arrival of a procession. They’d dealt with Stepford-Swan and her lapdog, the green bitch, Queen split personality disorder, the Worst Father of the Year and his grandson. It was only a matter of time before they received a visit from the two idiots.

Rumple sighed as he reluctantly withdrew from Belle’s beckoning lips. ‘Full house.’

Sure enough, when they stepped out from behind the curtain, the Charmings were waiting for them in the front of the shop.

‘Charming. Princess. Neal II,’ said Rumple nodding at them, including baby Neal settled in Snow’s papoose.

The silence stretched as Snow and Charming stared at Rumple.

‘All right, let’s cut to the chase: awake, true loves kiss, back, light magic, haircut, big surprise, never mind. Now what can I do for you?’

Rumple turned his back and pretended to busy himself with something on the back table behind the counter. It would no doubt be the usual; demanding his help, finding some way to make it his fault or his problem, and then ignoring his advice.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Snow apologetically.

Rumple took a second to go over those words in his head before he accepted he hadn’t misheard. Of all the things he had expected to hear, it wasn’t that. He turned slowly round to face the anguished princess. ‘What did you say?’

‘I’m the reason Hyde took Belle,’ said Snow, looking just as guilty as Henry. ‘I spoke without thinking… again. And I know nothing I can say can make up for it, but I’m sorry, Rumplestiltskin. I’m sorry, Belle. I truly am.’

Rumple didn’t know what to say. No one apart from Belle had ever thanked him before (without being sarcastic), let alone apologized for wronging him. And meant it.

‘Thank you,’ said Belle, always so forgiving. For those who deserved it, and meant it.

‘How are you doing?’ Charming asked Rumple, as if he was genuinely concerned for him. ‘How’re the side effects treating you?’

‘As well as anyone trapped in a red room full of fire and no doors,’ Rumple admitted. He smiled softly at his wife. ‘At least I’m not alone in there.’

‘You know, that baby… that’s the luckiest baby in the world to have a father like you.’

Rumple swallowed thickly at Charming’s praise. He almost missed their Sheep Boy days before Neverland. ‘Thank you.’

‘We have a long history together,’ said Snow ‘Whatever your motives might have been, you did bring us together. Even when we were cursed, you defended Mary Margaret even though you got what you wanted from your deal with Regina.’

‘You gave Henry the pendant for nothing,’ said Charming.

‘You sacrificed yourself to save us from Pan.’

‘We always said we don’t stop fighting for family. It’s time we started treating you as family, instead of Rum’ll Fix It.’

‘And _Ask Belle_ ,’ Snow added to Belle.

Belle smiled gratefully. It seemed she had made quite an impression that day in Granny’s diner, instead of coming across like a tantruming child.

‘About the Evil Queen,’ said Charming, though not in a let’s-dispense-with-the-pleasantries attitude. More of a I’m-sorry-but-this-isn’t-a-social-call.

‘We’ve made my position clear to Regina,’ said Rumple.

‘That’s why we’re here. Is there any way to undo the serum?’

‘I take it she doesn’t know you two are here?’

‘No,’ said Snow sadly. ‘And I did encourage her to split from the Evil Queen. This is my fault as much as Regina. Can they be rejoined?’

‘I’m not certain. There’s been no previous strange case before Mr Hyde. Attacking the Evil Queen will only hurt Regina. And the only sure way to get rid of the Evil Queen is if Regina dies. They’re the same. Hurting one will only hurt the other.’

‘So there’s no way?’ said Snow. ‘There’ll be two Regina’s forever.’

‘I didn’t say that. Just as Regina once arranged for Monte Cristo to assassinate you… I’m the reason Jekyll serum worked. I was even the one who gave Mr Hyde his name.’

‘What was your interest?’ asked Belle.

Rumple looked slightly ashamed. ‘I sought him out when you became my maid in my castle all those years ago. Because I’d begun to have feelings for you, and I thought they would make me weak. I vowed I wouldn’t love anything else while I was looking for my son…’

‘And you thought what, that Jekyll’s serum would rid you of those feelings?’

‘I’d hoped – at the time,’ he was quick to assure her. ‘But the experiment was a failure. And I’m glad that it was. Because I would never want to lose the love I feel for you, Belle.’

‘So you think if we made a serum that cancels out your magical components it might reverse the process?

‘It’s a theory. Remove the constant and the equation will have no stability.’

‘But how do we know it won’t have an effect on Regina?’ said Charming quickly.

‘We don’t. But luckily we have a control case we can try it out on before we administer the solution to Regina.’

‘You’ll help us?’ said Snow hopefully.

‘Of course. It’s not just an Evil Queen with no love in her heart we have to worry about. I have to protect my wife and child.’

‘Why?’ said Belle.

‘The serum wasn’t just a failure to me. It resulted in the death of a woman, Mary, the object of Jekyll’s affection’s, but she preferred Hyde. Jekyll killed her and Hyde took the blame for the murder of his lost love. That’s why he hates me. Now in typical eye for an eye fashion…’

‘They’ll come after me. And kill me.’

Rumple stroked her cheek. ‘I must go to them. I will not see you suffer when you’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘No!’ said Belle. ‘Rumple, you couldn’t have known this would happen!’

‘But it did,’ said Rumple sadly. ‘I’m as guilty as when I murdered Milah and Hook shot you to get back at me. I will take my punishment. I have to keep you safe.’

‘Who’s going to keep _you_ safe?’ said Belle fearfully. ‘You’re not immortal any more. And if Hyde’s joined forces with the Evil Queen…? I’ve only just got you back, Rumple.’

‘Wait,’ said Snow, an idea coming to her. ‘Gold, you once made a potion so that Regina couldn’t harm me and Charming in the Enchanted Forest. What if you made a similar potion for Belle so that they couldn’t harm her in Storybrooke?’

‘If you’re able to procure strands of their hair?’ said Rumple.

Snow nodded confidently. ‘Jekyll trusts us. Regina can supply one of hers. She can even pass herself off as the Evil Queen to get hairs from Hyde.’

‘Don’t worry, Gold,’ said Charming reassuringly. ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde won’t lay a finger on our family.’

Rumple felt overwhelmed. The Charmings were willing to help him protect Belle without demanding Rumple helped them first or in return for their assistance, and their inclusion of Rumple in their use of the word _family_ was sincere.

The last time Rumple had said his next words to Emma Swan in response to her calling him family and vowing to save him, Rumple had been sarcastic and unconvinced of her empathy. Now when he said it, it was with gratitude and confidence that Snow White and Prince Charming would help save him, Belle and their baby.

When family needs help, you step up.

‘I feel so reassured.’


End file.
